While April 15 is not in danger of losing its place as Tax Day on the calendar, Senate Democrats have chosen April 14 as the day they will introduce numerous tax increase bills. One of the bills is a proposed referendum to ask voters if they really meant that ALL tax increases should require a 2/3 vote of the Legislature.
Among the many tax bills introduced today is SB 5944 sponsored by Senators Murray, White, Regala, Prentice, Rockefeller, Fraser, Harper, Ranker, Conway, Nelson and Kohl-Welles.
Section 2 of the bill would redefine what it means to raise taxes in state law to exclude changes to tax preferences.
According to state law a tax preference is "an exemption, exclusion, or deduction from the base of a state tax; a credit against a state tax; a deferral of a state tax; or a preferential state tax rate."
This means that if SB 5944 was adopted by the Legislature and ratified by the voters, lawmakers would be able to make changes to any of the 567 tax preferences totaling $98.5 billion in savings for taxpayers with a simple majority vote. Among those tax preferences that could be changed without a 2/3 vote:
- property tax exemption for churches
- property tax exemption for personal intangible property
- B&O exemption for non-profit nursing homes
- sales tax exemption for feed and seed
- sales tax exemption for personal and professional services
- sales tax exemption for food
Though lawmakers may promise never to touch these tax exemptions, the fact remains that under SB 5944, any of the 500 plus tax exemptions currently in law would be subject to change or repeal with a simple majority vote. Changing them would no longer be considered tax increases under state law.
Senate Democrats have scheduled a 12:30 press conference today to announce their tax increase bills. We'll update this post with video if it becomes available.
UPDATED 2:21 p.m.
Here is video of the press conference:
