Yeah I definitely want to leave Washington state if they continue down this road.
For a time the state was socially liberal but still pretty business and tax friendly but there are too many greedy people who want to get their hands on that wealth entrepreneurs are creating.
And to build schools!? I already private tuition and our school could stand for some improvements, and our teachers deserve a bump in salary, but no we’re going to go tear down some perfectly usable elementary school to make a new more environmentally friendly one.
The money from this tax will only fatten the pockets of the bureaucrats, and will do little to nothing for the average person.
Right, they value the state being "socially liberal" but the second they have to contribute (as a very fortunate person) then it's a bridge too far and they want to leave. Complaining about paying for public schools and teachers as a person who literally admits to paying for private tutition is unimaginably out of touch. I too hope it's satire but unfortunately people like this exist.
Yes, people tend to develop different opinions about taxes depending on their financial situation. Perhaps a decade ago this person would have written your comment word for word -- who knows what kind of comments you will be writing as your situation develops. Only time will tell. :)
I am the one stating it. I personally think that this is what happens to a lot of people. Perhaps your opinion about taxes will never change, no matter what -- but certainly some folks evolve their thinking once they get wealthy or as you yourself said act "socially liberal" only until the tithe box reaches them.
All I can suggest is for you to ask a trusted friend to read the exchange and give their take on it, preferably without priming or explaining.
Alternatively you can, for my edification, demonstrate by way of example -- how should I have phrased my initial point in a more palatable manner in your opinion?
The only "point" you offered was a character attack, you did not make an attempt to respond to any of my arguments whatsoever. I am not interested in your rude suggestions or further interaction with you.
Since this tax has been around for about a year it's obviously too soon to see results from the funds. It doesn't appear that you're interested in charitably investigating how well it's working given you took the opportunity to generalize about several off-topic issues.
Most people with that viewpoint seem to be incredibly shortsighted, such as blaming or crediting the current president for things implemented in the last term that are finally creating an effect. This seems to be many Americans, sadly
I’d guess they’d be worse off if they look at net worth or five year rolling income of the people paying this.
A $250K gain because your startup got acquired or IPO’ed doesn’t exactly translate into a high average salary over the many years it took to gain the windfall. (versus, say, working at Microsoft or Amazon, and getting an extra $50-100K per year.)
You think this tax is mostly going to affect startup employee windfalls? Seriously?
It's 7%. So if you make a 1.25M (remember how tax brackets work - it's after the threshold) - you pay WA $70k. I think there's literally no way to argue that's regressive.
So, you make $150K in salary for 10 years, and $1.25M in one year, for an average of $162K a year.
That’s below starting salary at Microsoft. You pay an average of $7K per year, and the Microsoft employees pay zero.
It is certainly not a progressive tax. If they time averaged it over ~ five years, it would be.
Another way to look at it is that they say it will affect 7000 households statewide.
It will affect pretty much all startup windfalls, so either there are only 7000 startup employees in the whole state, or they know this is going to be a windfall tax on people that have low average income.
I think we all know quite well in terms of how and why real estate was left out of this.
Willing to bet that the ratio of politicians in Seattle that realize capital gains in excess of $250k/year vs. those that own real estate (especially multiple properties) is heavily favoring the latter group.
For a time the state was socially liberal but still pretty business and tax friendly but there are too many greedy people who want to get their hands on that wealth entrepreneurs are creating.
And to build schools!? I already private tuition and our school could stand for some improvements, and our teachers deserve a bump in salary, but no we’re going to go tear down some perfectly usable elementary school to make a new more environmentally friendly one.
The money from this tax will only fatten the pockets of the bureaucrats, and will do little to nothing for the average person.
Washington in a nutshell.