Income tax on the wealthy?

As Washington's initiative turn-in deadline looms Friday afternoon, Bill Gates Sr. and dozens of other income-tax advocates have turned in what they estimate at 360,000-370,000 Initiative 1098 signatures, and say they’ll add more late-arriving petitions before the doors close on Friday.

The measure would impose an income tax on high wage-earners, while reducing the state share of the property tax and eliminating the business tax on many small businesses. State voters have rejected income tax measures in recent decades, but this is the first proposal that would impose the tax only on a segment of the population. A writeup on previous votes is here. The large number of signatures will permit use of a 3 percent random sample. The bare minimum is 241,153 valid signatures of registered Washington voters. The state Elections Division has regularly urged all campaigns to submit at least 300,000 signatures, allowing use of random sampling, and providing a pad to cover duplicate or invalid signatures. Two other campaigns already have turned in well in excess of 300,000 for their measures (I-1100, privatizing liquor sales; and I-1082, allowing the private sector to offer insurance programs for workplace injuries). Backers of the state income tax measure, I-1098, has an appointment at 9 a.m. Thursday. Three campaigns have previously set appointments for Friday, the deadline: I-1107, beverage tax rollback, 8:30 a.m.; I-1053, Tim Eyman’s plan to restore two-thirds vote requirement for tax hikes, 10 a.m.; and I-1105, privatizing liquor sales, 1:30 p.m. A seventh potential ballot measure is I-1068, decriminalizing adult use, growing and selling marijuana, have made a “tentative” appointment to turn in petition signatures at 4:20 p.m. on Friday. Organizers said they have already tallied about 200,000 signatures and have been getting a lot of petitions back in the mail every day. Six initiatives would tie the recent record, set in 2000, for a single year; the all-time record was seven, back in 1914, the first year the voter-approved process was available.