511,408 Signatures Submitted—Washington’s Income Tax Could Be Headed to the Ballot

Let’s Go Washington just turned in 511,408 signatures for its initiative to repeal Washington’s new state income tax.

That is not just enough to clear the legal requirement. It is more than 200,000 signatures above the minimum required and more than 120,000 above the Secretary of State’s recommended cushion for qualification.

The signatures still need to be certified by the Secretary of State, but with a cushion that large, it is extremely likely Washington voters will get a say on the creation of a state income tax this November.

That matters.

Supporters of the income tax, including Gov. Bob Ferguson, are already trying to frame this as a win for democracy. But their newfound respect for voter input is hard to take seriously after they spent months making it harder for Washingtonians to have a say in the first place.

They could have sent a constitutional amendment to the ballot, the way lawmakers have done in the past when asking voters to change Washington’s tax structure.

They didn’t.

Instead, the Legislature passed the income tax as ordinary legislation, rejected taxpayer safeguards, and used procedural language that made it much harder for voters to challenge the law directly.

In other words, this is not a win for democracy because income tax supporters welcomed a vote.

It is a win because more than half a million Washingtonians forced the issue.

Washington voters have rejected income taxes again and again. Yet Olympia passed one anyway, starting with a tax on income over $1 million and asking the courts to rewrite long-standing constitutional limits.

Now voters are likely to have the final word.

📌 The initiative would repeal the new 9.9% tax on annual individual income over $1 million.

🛡️ It would prohibit state and local governments from imposing taxes on individual income or taxes measured by individual income.

🧾 It would define income in state law to help prevent future attempts to repackage an income tax under a different name.

🔎 It simply gives Washingtonians the choice they should have had from the beginning.

Learn more about what the initiative specifically will do, and what it will not do, here.

After months of being told this tax was inevitable, more than 511,000 Washingtonians just sent Olympia a very different message.

Voters deserve a say.