OLYMPIA — A tax-exemption package approved by Washington lawmakers two years ago allowed Boeing to avoid nearly $20 million in sales taxes last year.
And thanks to a tax-transparency provision passed the same year, the precise value of one piece of the company’s tax-break package has been made public.
The sales-tax savings of $19,586,512 in 2014, released to the Seattle Times by the state Department of Revenue after a public-records request and appeal, represents a small slice of the aerospace giant’s expected annual savings from the record-setting tax-incentive package.
In addition to the sales-tax exemption, the total tax-break package — approved during a special legislative session in 2013 to land production of the 777X in Everett — included savings from a reduction in the state tax on business revenues.
The tax-transparency provision, championed by state Rep. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle, requires tax savings claimed by individual businesses to be made public within two years for any new or expanded tax break passed by lawmakers.
“It’s the beginning of a new era in opening the books,” Carlyle said.
Previously, taxpayer confidentiality laws have, with few exceptions, shielded disclosure of tax-break benefits enjoyed by companies. Instead, such information has been largely limited to estimates of how the tax breaks apply to broad industry sectors.
Under the transparency law for new tax breaks, company-specific disclosure will be the rule, instead of the exception.
That means Boeing will be far from alone in seeing its precise benefits revealed.
In coming years, tax savings claimed by aluminum smelters, farms, data centers and newspapers will be made public under the new law. Smaller Boeing aerospace suppliers benefiting from the 2013 tax package also will be subject to disclosure.
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