New Tax in Washington

[Edsel]

Very recently, the city of Seattle (no income tax in that state) passed a new tax on companies with $25 million or more in revenue.  The tax is $275 per employee.  Amazon alone has 40,000 employees.

The revenue threshold is so large than only a handful of employers will pay.  I'm told from a radio source that originally the tax was to be $500 per employee with a lower revenue threshold but the city yielded to pressure from various employers.

I don't know that many people on this forum will have any interest in this whatsoever, unless we have members from Washington.  But the problem in all locations with a new tax, no matter how forlorn or strange, is:

1. Almost never goes away, even if proposed to be temporary.
2. Can be increased.

[rfassett]

So the net result will be an increased cost of product produce or sold by those companies or a reduction in number of employees.  Government seems to be the only area of our world that thinks it can spend and spend and spend and raise taxes and raise taxes and raise taxes without any thought as to the consequence or responsibility of such actions.  And this is not a political statement - but rather a statement of fact.

[Lee B]

Oregon has a new statewide transit tax effective July 1st.

It's a .001 withholding tax on Employee ( Box 1 )Gross Wages i.e. $ 1.00 for each $ 1,000.00 remitted quarterly