The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) claims to be a “nonpartisan, voluntary organization” dedicated to limited government and free markets. They put out a report every year ranking all states based on things like personal and corporate tax rates, property and sales taxes, employer costs, and wages.
This year’s report was, well, pretty ugly for Washington State.
Here are Five Fast Facts on Washington State’s economic outlook:
- 📉📝 📈💰 Rule Of Thumb - The report offers up a general statement on economic well being for a state: spending less and taxing less generally makes the state more prosperous. Given the tax bill we just got a few days ago, we can certainly appreciate paying less taxes!
- 🤦 Oooh, That’s Gotta Sting - So where does that put us? In 37th place, unfortunately, three spots higher than last year. Apparently, the state’s high tax burden and increasing labor costs aren’t helpful. Who knew? 🤷
- 😣 Bottom Of The Barrel - We topped (bottomed??) the list in several categories, including 50th for estate taxes, 43rd for sales taxes, and 44th for all other taxes. Could have been worse (a little bit, anyway).
- ⛰️ On The Mountaintops - It wasn’t all doom and gloom, though. We were #1 for personal income tax rate, #2 for personal income tax progressivity, and #3 for tax expenditure limitations. Whatever those are.
- ✋ Official Pushback - Not surprisingly, the state was officially not amused. Economist Paul Turek said the study’s criteria were “highly subjective” and political in nature, and suggested a better explanation of why the criteria and methodology would have been helpful. Sounds like lower taxes probably would have helped, too.
🔥Bottom line: This is just one organization’s opinion, and anytime we see these things we need to take them with a grain of salt. Still…it should make us stop and evaluate if our state leaders are doing the right things on behalf of the right people. And wouldn’t you know it? There’s an election just around the corner, so we have a chance to do something about it in just a few months!
Do you think WA’s tax policies are good, bad, or indifferent?
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