Despite the Constitution of the State of Washington saying that a tax on income is unconstitutional.  And despite the fact that the the legal community has determined that capital gains - defined as the profit earned on the sale of an asset (vehicles, property, shares of a business) - is in fact "income."  And despite all the many times (10) the voters of Washington State have rejected the idea of an income tax, the Legislature persists.

And what did your parents say about persistence?  It  pays off.   Early Saturday  evening 3/6/21, the Washington Sate Senate Democratic majority approved Senate Bill 5096, which would create a capital gains income tax in with the slimmest of margins - a vote of 25-24.

In a news release 13th District State Senator Judy Warnick (R) of Moses Lake says she tried to amend the bill to protect agriculture for the propose 7% tax but ultimately failed as did several other Republican authored amendments.

Warnick says, “This is just bad policy when our state’s budget is in such good condition. We don’t have a revenue problem and arguments for this as a way to make our system fairer are extremely biased and a bit disingenuous... All this does is create another tax. We could have done something to actually lower taxes for those in need, but the majority opted not to.”

An Associated Press article from this past September says the Washington Economy is improving  "In June, the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council showed that state revenues through mid-2023 were projected to be nearly $9 billion lower than previous projections had shown. On Wednesday, updated numbers increased revenues by $4.6 billion for that timeframe."

And the prediction for the March revenue forecast due in a week looks to improve the gains already made.  In other words -WHAT do we need income tax for??

The alleged idea is that the tax will affect only a small number of people and they can afford it. But what do we know about persistence?  State Senator Warnick says, “What this is really about is an ideological crusade to get a personal income tax on everyone in our state.”