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Seattle Councilmember Herbold said during a recent TV debate that it wasn't clear a local income tax was illegal. Perhaps she isn't familiar with the 1951 ruling from the state Supreme Court invalidating an income tax saying: "It is no longer subject to question in this court that income is property."
"Municipalities must have express legislative authority to levy taxes . . . We affirm the hearing examiner's conclusion that the city lacked authority to tax roaming charge revenue, but like the superior court, we base that conclusion on the absence of specific statutory authority."
Not only has the Legislature not granted municipalities the authority to tax income, lawmakers have passed a law expressly forbidding this type of tax.
To help the Seattle City Council better understand these legal facts from a source they may trust, I propose they sit down with their counterparts from the Olympia City Council to learn why those elected officials filed a lawsuit to keep an illegal income tax off the ballot. Although Olympia and Seattle local officials share many of the same goals and desires for an income tax, the Olympia City Council decided to do something apparently too radical for those in Seattle - govern within the bounds of law.
Consider the following arguments made by the City of Olympia in its legal brief against a local income tax:
- "The proposed Income Tax Initiative clearly conflicts with state law."
- "The proposed Income Tax conflicts with state law which prohibits local governments from taxing net income."
- "Because the proposed Income Tax Initiative seeks to levy a local tax on net income, the proposed Income Tax Initiative clearly and unambiguously conflicts with Washington state law."
- "The proposed Income Tax Initiative conflicts with RCW 36.65.030, which prohibits local governments from levying a tax on net income."
The City of Olympia went to court to stop a local income tax despite supporting the policy goal. Perhaps there is something the Seattle Council could learn from that.
Additional Information
Timeline of Olympia Income Tax Ballot Measure
Income tax rate creep - Hollywood edition
Lawmakers can extinguish wildfire of illegal local income tax proposals
History of income tax votes in Washington
Why did legislature pass 1984 local income tax ban?
Will Seattle try to adopt an illegal income tax?
