Inslee seeks biggest business-tax increase in decades to fund schools
To help pay for what he calls a “bold” budget that would halt the chronic and unconstitutional underfunding of Washington’s public schools, Gov. Jay Inslee is pushing the largest state business-tax increase in decades.
The Democratic governor’s jumbo two-year budget wish list, unveiled shortly before Christmas, would boost taxes on tens of thousands of service-industry businesses, affecting everything from law firms and bookkeepers to beauty shops, janitors, musical groups and funeral parlors.
Inslee’s plan — which is already being panned by Republicans and some business groups — would raise the state’s business and occupation (B&O) tax rate for such services to 2.5 percent, from the current 1.5 percent.
That would generate an estimated $2.2 billion over the 2017-19 biennium — the largest single element in the governor’s $4.4 billion operating-budget tax package, which also proposes new taxes on capital gains and carbon pollution.
Read more: http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/inslee-seeks-biggest-business-tax-increase-in-decades-to-fund-schools/