Proposed Bill Would Double WA State’s Death Tax

According to Jason Mercier of the Washington Policy Center, Valentine’s Day is being marked in Olympia by a number of public hearings on some very un-loving bills.

  One of the proposed bills would double the death tax

WA state estate, or death taxes, are levied on a person’s property and belonging they leave behind when they die. We are 1 of only 12 states that have such a tax, says Mercier. Currently, our death tax is tied with Hawaii for the highest in the nation, at 20 percent.

But House Bill (HB) 2795 would double that to 40 percent. Supporters of the bill claim wealthier persons get ‘out’ of having to pay their fair share (even when they die), but the text of the bill claims it’s to make the tax system “more progressive.”

The bill is currently in the House Finance Committee, and hearings are being held today, Tuesday, February 14th.

Mercier reports there isn’t any operational inflation index that would prevent non-qualifying taxpayers from being ‘snared’ by this charge. But HB 1795 doesn’t have that. He also reported this:

“Since 2014, approximately 75% of taxpayers that paid the state’s death tax were for estates valued at less than $5 million according to data from the Department of Revenue. With no functional death tax index for inflation, coupled with increasing property values, that number is likely to grow to capture even more taxpayers than was envisioned under the original law.”