The 2018 legislature established the House Tax Structure Work Group, which held public meetings over the summer in Spokane, Yakima, Vancouver and Seattle. This work group had two members, Representatives Noel Frame and Terry Nealey.

The work group’s final report contains four recommendations, which, in summary, are:

1. The Legislature should reauthorize the Tax Structure Work Group for the 2019-21 biennium and expand membership to include multiple members of the House of the Representatives, the Senate, and stakeholders …
2. The Tax Structure Work Group should develop policy proposals addressing … the regressive nature of the tax code; the negative impact of business and occupation tax on small, low-margin and/or start-up businesses; … the need to modernize the tax code … ; and the excessive number of tax preferences and exemptions.
3. To inform the Tax Structure Work Group’s policy proposals … economic modeling or other comparable analysis should be conducted … [with regard to] replacing [various] existing revenue sources with alternative revenue sources.
4. The Tax Structure Work Group should continue direct engagement with taxpayers and other stakeholders as part of the work group … .

The full report is available here.