As I’ve traveled all through King County and even round the remainder of the state, I hear one frequent set of points — the excessive price of housing, its unaffordability and the burden of property taxes on householders, renters, and small companies alike.
Think about the 2024 Tax Roll I simply signed as county assessor. Whether it is like final yr, residential taxpayers pays roughly 83% of the $7.6 billion due in property taxes. The industrial sector, together with a number of the nation’s most profitable companies, pays about 17%.
To deal with this inequity, Sen. June Robinson, D-Everett, chair of the Senate Methods and Means Committee, and Rep. April Berg, D-Mill Creek, proposed a tax reduction bundle to assist hundreds of Washington taxpayers. They deserve our thanks.
It’s time for actual tax reform, proper now, proper right here.
This bundle of three payments and constitutional amendments would supply a property-tax break to common householders, a sales-tax credit score to low-income renters and a reduce in private property taxes paid by companies. General, it’s going to assist make our tax system fairer and housing a bit extra inexpensive.
Most states have some type of a “homestead exemption,” an exemption on main residences, permitting householders to pay at a decrease charge than industrial property house owners. Washington doesn’t. Working with a statewide bipartisan group of assessors, the payments we’re proposing, Senate Invoice 6249 and Home Invoice 2419, would treatment that by giving a tax break to these proudly owning low- and mid-value houses.
These payments would supply a property-tax exemption from the state levy for the higher of $100,000, or as much as 60% of the median worth by county, for a main residence, whether or not a house, condominium, manufactured dwelling or a multiunit dwelling with fewer than 5 models. It could accomplish this with out gutting Okay-12 training or native companies by rebalancing the share of property taxes paid by the residential and industrial sectors.
As dwelling costs have risen, so have rents, placing an amazing pressure on working-class folks on the lookout for housing close to their jobs. Constructing on the state’s new Working Households Tax Credit score, SB 6250 and HB 2418 would supply a sales-tax credit score — a tax rebate — of $300 for cost-burdened renters statewide. To qualify, renters would must be renting housing that constitutes a main residence over six months of the yr and meet the revenue necessities of the Working Households Tax Credit score.
To help companies, HB 1761 would increase the present $15,000 exemption threshold for taxes on enterprise tools to $50,000. This may significantly assist small companies, lots of whom are nonetheless struggling to get well from the pandemic.
The primary listening to on the house owner exemption is about for Thursday in Olympia. This can be a massive ask of the Legislature in a brief, 60-day session. Constitutional amendments, required for each the house owner and enterprise tax reduction, take a two-thirds vote in every chamber and voter approval statewide. If handed in complete, this might mark one of the important tax reduction packages handed by the Legislature in many years.
We’ve been to Olympia and fought for senior and disabled householders in order that the Senior Property Tax Exemption threshold now sits at $84,000 for King County residents — greater than double what it was in 2019 after we first requested lawmakers for assist. However working-class householders, renters, and small companies deserve a break, too.
Let your legislators know you need actual tax reduction, proper now, proper right here. It’s time.
