After 93 Years and a 25-Hour Filibuster, Washington Finally Has an Income Tax, and Billionaires Are Already Packing Their Bags
16th March 2026
Fortune, a Voice of the Crust.
After a grueling 25 hours of debate on the House floor, complete with an almost show-stopping filibuster effort of more than 81 amendments by Republicans to stop the bill from moving forward, Washington made history this week with the passage of a millionaires tax bill, which would create the first income tax in the state’s history.
On March 9, lawmakers passed a 9.9% tax on personal income above $1 million per year—a first for the income-taxless state. The final vote was 52–46, and involved the longest floor debate in Washington history, far exceeding the previous record of nine hours.
“We knew it was going to be a pretty major endeavor,” Rep. Brianna Thomas, a Democrat who supported the measure, told Fortune. “We’ve got 93 years of precedent in front of us, behind us, around us at all times on the conversation around an income tax.”
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For Thomas, the economy has simply outgrown the code. Washington has now become the home of global multitrillion-dollar organizations Amazon, Microsoft, and Boeing, and it’s staring down a projected budget deficit of $10 billion to $12 billion over the next four years.
So they’ve decided to kill the goos that lays the golden eggs, and that will drive these ‘multitrillion-dollar orgaizations’ to places like Florida and Texas, as California has been doing assiduously for a decade or two now.
Smooth move, Democrats.
March 16th, 2026 at 07:46
I understand an income tax is prohibited in the state’s constitution, so I have no idea how that is supposed to be squared. I also wonder about equal treatment clauses I. That document. Commies and details I guess.
The other thing they miss, is the truly wealthy can structure their income around stuff like this. Exercise in stupidity.
March 17th, 2026 at 06:06
More to the point, wealthy people can leave—so the tax burden increasingly falls on those who can least afford it.
Even more to the point, COVID taught businesses that they don’t necessarily need to crowd all of their employees into a dense urban (socialist) environment to have a successful business. Businesses are already leaving places like California and New York because they no longer have to put up with their bullshit.