Blog

New report: School Funding: Accounting for the Billions Spent in Response to McCleary

In response to the McCleary decision, and as part of the Legislature’s adopted school funding reforms, state spending on public schools increased $14.244 billion or 110.0 percent from 2009–11 to 2019–21. Over the same period, all other state spending increased by just 52.0 percent. In addition to increasing spending, the Legislature increased the state property […]

Increasing aerospace taxes would be counterproductive for Washington

The news that Boeing will move 787 production from Everett to South Carolina is disappointing, though not unexpected given the crippling effects of COVID-19 on airplane demand. Gov. Inslee and others have responded by suggesting that Boeing should be paying more in state taxes. In a statement, Gov. Inslee said, “Boeing’s decision to take the […]

State revenues not as bad as expected; federal debt headed off the charts

Washington isn’t the only state in which the recession’s impact to revenues is now expected to be not as bad as initially feared. Pew reports that Colorado, Michigan, and New Jersey are expecting higher revenues than previously forecast. Bloomberg adds California and Georgia to that list. According to Bloomberg, The figures are an early sign […]

What will happen to calls for tax increases?

Since the June revenue forecast, many legislators and others have suggested that the state would need  to increase taxes to address the budget shortfall. Will the September revenue forecast change those discussions? Revenues from our current tax structure are now forecast to increase by 9.3 percent from 2017–19 to 2019–21 and by 7.9 percent from […]

State and local taxes in Washington have increased over the past several years compared to other states

The U.S. Census Bureau has released state and local government finance data for 2018. In Washington, state and local taxes increased by 10.4 percent over 2017. This includes property taxes, sales and gross receipts taxes, and motor vehicle license taxes. (For other states, it also includes income taxes.) To compare Washington’s taxes to other states, […]

Seattle City Council passes payroll tax, with a 20-year sunset clause

The Seattle City Council has passed the “payroll expense tax” that was approved by the Budget Committee last week. (Mayor Durkan has not yet acted on the bill, but it was passed by the Council with enough votes to override a veto.) As passed by the full Council, the tax will sunset Dec. 31, 2040. […]

Proposed business tax approved by Seattle City Council budget committee; amendments increase the revenue estimate

Yesterday the Select Budget Committee of the Seattle City Council approved the “payroll expense tax” introduced by Councilmember Mosqueda. (I wrote about the original proposal here.) According to the Seattle Times, the full council will vote on the proposal on Monday. The budget committee also approved the spending plan associated with the tax, with amendments. […]

A side-by-side of Seattle business tax proposals

Seattle City Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda has proposed a new “payroll expense” tax; it has not been officially introduced, but a draft will be discussed in a budget committee meeting today. The proposal is similar to the payroll expense tax introduced by councilmembers Sawant and Morales in April. The table below compares the proposals. Notably, the […]

Looking back at state budgeting in the Great Recession, part 3: New resources

As I noted in the first part of this series, revenues during the Great Recession dropped by $10.259 billion. That figure includes the impacts of legislative changes to revenues. Economic changes to the November 2007 through November 2011 forecasts alone reduced general fund–state revenues by $12.640 billion. The second part of this series outlined how […]

Tax provisions in federal stimulus package include individual rebates and employer payroll tax credits and deferrals

Altogether, the tax provisions in the federal stimulus package, which was passed by Congress today, are estimated by the Joint Committee on Taxation to reduce federal revenues by $605.5 billion through fiscal year 2025. Of that reduction, $292.4 billion is from the bill’s rebate for individuals. The rebate will be $1,200 for singles and $2,400 […]