I recently attended a town hall on Washington state taxes, as previously noted in The Herald. The bipartisan Tax Structure Work Group made it quite clear their job is not increasing taxes, rather consulting Washington’s citizens as to what we feel is a fair way to be taxed.
Washington has the most regressive tax system of all the states. Currently, as a percentage of income, poor people pay six times more in taxes than the richest in our state, up to 17 percent of income! Few people would consider that fair. This is largely because of our state’s dependence on sales and property taxes. So, two or three of the working group’s scenarios for balance would reduce sales and property taxes without increasing the overall taxes collected. It is clear to me that continuing our current system of taxation will work to keep the poor in poverty of health, wealth and happiness, and we will continue to have more homelessness and crime.
I also learned a clearer way to speak about the fairness of taxes which will help us in our conversations about taxing: consistency of taxes among taxpayers, and capacity of individuals and businesses to pay taxes.
As a Christian, I believe “from everyone to whom much has been given, much is required” (Luke 12), so that progressive taxes are more fair because they are based on the capacity of individuals and businesses to pay. One of the better ways to address poverty is to decrease the tax burden on poor and middle classes. Studies of cultures show that in societies with less wealth disparity all citizens are happier, and there is less crime.
I encourage all to go to the Tax Structure Work Group website under “survey” to learn and respond.
June Thomasson
Sultan
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