SEATTLE – Multimillionaire Seattle developer Martin Selig has given nearly $1 million to the campaign to repeal Washington’s estate tax, making him the top individual donor to any initiative effort this year.
His contributions totaling $922,000 have accounted for more than two-thirds of the money raised by the Committee to Abolish Washington State Estate Tax, which filed Initiative 920.
Selig, 70, built the 76-floor Columbia Center in downtown Seattle – the Northwest’s tallest building. In all, his properties are worth at least $378 million, according to the King County Assessor’s Office.
He says he isn’t sure how much his estate would owe under the tax, but he’s sure he can afford it. He’s pushing for its repeal to help small businesses and to put Washington on a level playing field with states that don’t have an estate tax, he said.
“My point is the estate tax hurts the middle class. It hits the small businesses harder than anyone else,” Selig told a Seattle newspaper.
Washington’s tax applies to about 200 estates per year – about one half of 1 percent of all deaths, according to the state Department of Revenue – and raises $100 million annually for public schools. Estates worth less than $2 million, or $4 million for couples, are exempt, and the value of property used primarily for farming can be deducted from the taxable estate.
The state’s tax rate starts at 10 percent and climbs to 19 percent for the largest estates. That’s in addition to the federal estate tax.
Opponents of I-920 aren’t buying Selig’s arguments. The estate tax helps make the Washington tax system more equitable, they say. Because the state has no income tax, it relies heavily on sales taxes, which disproportionately affect the poor and middle class.
“We have to remember, the owners of these businesses have been benefiting from Washington state’s deeply regressive tax code for their entire work lives,” said Sandeep Kaushik, spokesman for the No on 920 campaign. “They’ve been enjoying a huge tax advantage for decades of their lives and have been allowed to escape paying their fair share.”
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