Blog

March Forecast

This afternoon the state Economic and Revenue Forecast Council reduced the forecast of general fund–state revenues for current 2009–11 biennium by $79.8 million to $28.047 billion and the forecast for the 2011–13 biennium by $698.4 million to $31.907 billion. These reductions were smaller than many had feared. As require by law, the baseline forecasts were […]

Report: Senate, House budget writers have a deal on the supplemental

TVW reports today: Senate, House budget writers have a deal on the supplemental.

Pacific Place Garage

Fewer people have been parking at the city of Seattle’s Pacific Place garage, and the facility is losing money as a result. In an op-ed in today’s Seattle Times, Matt Griffin and I suggest that the city should cut rates to regain volume. For a garage, even more so than an office building, the capital […]

Seattle Jobs

Kent Kammerer mentioned our 2009 brief “Seattle’s Lost Decade” Monday in Crosscut (“Why businesses worry about Seattle’s policies”). The brief is available here. Here is an update of Chart 2 from the brief, extended through March 2009, the most recent date for which employment in Seattle is available. The data come from the Puget Sound […]

Two charts on Seattle's finances

Here are two charts to give some perspective as Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn releases his budget proposals for 2011 and 2012. In “the worst economy since the Great Depression,” the City of Seattle’s revenue collections have held up relatively well. The first chart compares, for fiscal years 2000 to 2010, revenue growth experienced by Seattle’s […]

What Share of Businesses Would See Their B&O Tax Eliminated by I-1098?

In its impact statement for Initiative 1098, the Office of Financial Management estimates that the initiative’s expansion of the small business credit would eliminate the business and occupation tax obligation for 118,000 Washington businesses. What fraction of Washington businesses would this represent? There is a lot of confusion as to the answer to this question. […]

Capital Gains and I-1098

A recent posting on the Economic Opportunity Institute’s Washington Policy Watch Blog wrongly claims that Initiative 1098 income tax proposal provides an exemption for capital gains on the sale of a business (link here). In response to the question: “Would there be an exemption for capital gains income, such as someone selling their home or […]

September Revenue Forecast: Let the Cutting Begin

The September update to the general fund-state revenue forecast is out. The forecast for the current 2009-11 biennium has been reduced by $769.9 million; that for the upcoming 2011-13 biennial by $668.7 million. The revision for the current biennium places the general fund into a deficit. The forecast press release is available here. The PowerPoint […]

Arithmetic

Our intern, Nikolai Riabov, recently posted on this blog a table comparing state and local taxes by state based upon the Census Bureau’s 2008 survey of government finances. The state Department of Revenue has just released a research report—Comparative State and Local Taxes 2008—using this same data. DOR’s calculations agree with ours: For the Census […]

Update: Comparative State and Local Taxes

The Census Bureau recently released the latest statistics on state and local taxes as part of its 2008 Survey of Government Finances. For 2007/2008, we have calculated that the per capita tax burden on the average Washingtonian was $4,354, while the amount of tax revenue collected per $1,000 of personal income was $105.49. Washington ranked […]