Washington state has had some form of an estate tax since 1901. Currently, taxes are imposed on estates of $2 million or more, which is assessed on roughly 300 wealthy families each year.
By a landslide vote of 62 percent in 2006, Washington voters reaffirmed their support for the estate tax to provide much-needed funding for our public schools.
The revenues from the estate tax go into the Education Legacy Trust account, which pays for things like lower class sizes, early learning, full-day kindergarten, and professional development teachers.
In a recent Supreme Court ruling, the court said that married couples — but only married couples — could escape taxes on their estates altogether. The ruling, based purely on a technicality in state law, resulted in an unfair tax code. Wealthy singles and divorced couples would be required to pay the tax while married couples would be exempt.
With this ruling, the state will be required to issue refund checks to wealthy families starting as early as next week.
This isn’t fair and isn’t what the Legislature or the voters intended when they approved an estate tax.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Today, the House approved House Bill 2064, sponsored by Rep. Timm Ormsby of Spokane, which remedies the problem. It will fix the technicality by applying the estate tax fairly and equally to all estates over $2 million, regardless of the marital status.
But more importantly, it’ll save $160 million from leaving our classrooms.
If the Legislature doesn’t pass this bill by Sunday, $160 million will be taken directly from classrooms and given to multimillionaires in Washington. Is this right for Washington? We don’t think so.
Real money will be removed from the Education Legacy Trust account. Checks will be issued to multimillionaires as early as next week. School budgets will be cut. Teachers will be laid off. And one million students in Washington will see their class size get bigger.
Rep. Ormsby’s bill restores the voters’ original intent when they said “yes” to schools in 2006. We have an opportunity to show true leadership by sending HB 2064 to the Governor’s desk so he can sign it this weekend before it’s too late.
Photo courtesy kahunapulej via Creative Commons