Rosella Mosby

Washington state has one of the most vibrant tech communities in the world, but it's under threat from the new anti-tech, anti-innovation, capital gains tax, passed in 2021. I was curious how tech workers felt about this tax so I visited Microsoft and Amazon (see video below). What I learned shocked me. Many employees of these companies (who receive a large portion of them compensation in the form of stock) were not even aware that Washington's legislature had passed a capital gains tax that would affect them. This was not by accident. Politicians in Olympia designed the tax to initially apply to a fairly small set of people (the threshold at which it applies is $250,000). For years they had attempted to create a widespread income tax in WA by initiative, but they were repeatedly voted down by Washingtonians. But once they found a way to open the door to this new capital gains tax (by absurdly claiming it's not an income tax, but an excise tax), they immediately set to work on making it more widespread. Bill 5335 has been introduced to modify the capital gains tax so that the threshold at which applies will drop to $15,000 (a 94% drop, massively expanding the net of people it applies to), while increasing the rate from 7% to 8.5%. The increase in rate would mean that Washingtonians would see a greater than 50% increase in their tax burden on capital gains (sale of stocks, bonds, cryptocurrencies and other assets such as small businesses). When I explained these facts to the tech employees I met at Microsoft and Amazon most of them supported a repeal of the capital gains tax. We have one chance to get Washington back to its long tradition of not punishing success and welcoming the world's best and brightest to our state. This election, please vote Yes on initiative I-2109. Vote yes, Pay less.