If you haven’t heard of “The Bracken case,” it’s probably because you’re more focused on everyday life, like your child’s graduation, finally getting that root canal, or making those home repairs you’ve been putting off.
And you’re also probably not an heir to one of the multi-million dollar estates that’s directly impacted by the decision.
If you have kids in public school, you’ll soon know about this case, though, because it could mean taking $160 million from our one million kids in public schools and giving it to millionaires.
House Democrats have a plan to restore this much-needed funding for our schools.
(Update: Link updated with new Bracken bill number – HB 2075)
But so far, the Senate Republican majority has not acted to prevent the raiding of the Education Legacy Trust Fund to hand these millionaires a new tax break — just when the Supreme Court ordered lawmakers to find $4 billion to fully fund public schools.
We should be adding, not taking away, funds for our kids in public schools.
A quick primer on Bracken:
Washington state has had some form of an estate tax on wealthy estates since 1901. In 2005, we enacted a stand-alone tax for estates worth $2 million or more.
The revenue from this tax goes into the Education Legacy Trust Fund, used exclusively for educating our kids.
In 2006, the voters overwhelmingly approved of this policy by a vote of 62%.
A Supreme Court decision last year – the Bracken decision – wiped out the estate tax requirement for married couples based purely on a technicality in how the original law was drafted.
Under the ruling, wealthy married couples can completely escape the estate tax with a little planning. That’s some technicality, isn’t it?
Unless the Legislature fixes this glitch, by the end of today, the state will start mailing refund checks totaling millions of dollars. That’s right. Today.
The envelopes are sealed. The first round of checks will go out tomorrow morning. If we don’t act TODAY, we are literally taking dollars out of the classroom and issuing refunds to millionaire estates.
Not taking action means one million school kids lose money – cash that goes straight into the pockets of millionaires.
It doesn’t have to be this way
The compromise “Bracken fix,” as we call it in Olympia, has been agreed to by both sides and could be signed into law by the end of the day.
Lawmakers are elected to make the hard decisions — although in this case, fixing Bracken is a pretty easy decision.
Millionaire estates or a million school kids?
We chose a million school kids.