Dori: This is why voters should never allow a new tax in Washington state

The city of Mill Creek will soon have the highest sales tax in Washington state.

Mill Creek will reportedly see a sales tax bump of 0.3 percent next month, raising the total rate from 9.6 to 9.9 percent. The state Department of Revenue says the 9.9 percent is a combination of state and local taxes.

“When I used to go into Food Town (when I was 7 or 8 years old) the sales tax was 4 or 5 percent,” KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson. “Now the sleepy, north end hamlet of Mill Creek is going to have the highest sales tax in the state.”

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Upon hearing that Mill Creek was hiking its sales tax, Dori did a little research on the Washington Department of Revenue’s website and found that Washington initially implemented a sales tax in the 1930s. The first sales tax was 2 percent, according to Dori. It’s gone up ever since.

Dori argues that any time a government gets a tax approved, it will never go away, which is why he also is against a state income tax.

“The government, any time they can wrap their greasy, slimy, scummy tentacles around our money, they will haul that money in,” Dori said. “A sales tax that started at 2 percent is now 9.9 percent in Mill Creek.”

“You cannot ever allow them to institute any new tax,” he said. “Once it’s in, then they will spend every waking second trying to figure out how to hike it up.”

Snohomish County voters approved the increase last November. The additional tax dollars are slated for the area’s bus system.

Washington’s sales tax was first introduced in the 1930s as the state’s tax structure was less secure and relied more upon property taxes than anything else.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.