Seattle’s Already Record Setting Sales Tax Could Soon Hit 10.8%

Seattle boasts the highest sales tax in the country and elected officials keep cranking it higher. Just last week, King County transportation officials approved a new 0.10% sales tax bump starting Jan. 1 to pay to repair shoddy roads. 

And that’s not déjà vu you’re feeling, you actually just read the news earlier this month about another 0.15% sales tax hike for increased bus service that Seattle voters will see on the November. Together, that would boost Seattle’s 10.5% sales tax to a cool 10.8%, but hey, at least the progressive politicians proposing these taxes feel badly about contributing to Washington’s incredibly regressive tax code! 

On Friday, King County Transportation District’s board of supervisors (which is not actually the King County Council, but consists of all nine members), voted 5-4 to pass a new .10% sales tax to pay that will raise $100 million a year to fix up around 1,5000 miles of roads in unincorporated King County.  County officials estimate this will cost the median household an additional $40 a year. 

Also, earlier this month, Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson proposed doubling the small portion of the City’s sales tax dedicated to transit in her renewal of the Seattle Transit Measure. Raising the rate from .15% to .3% will collect about $138 million, which the City will use to pay for 280,000 bus trips a year and 22,000 free ORCA transit passes for low-income Seattleites over the next ten years. 

Unlike the more recent County measure, this sales tax hike will face the scrutiny of the voters in November. Some have speculated that the King County Transportation District’s increase will discourage voters from approving Wilson’s measure. And maybe a growing number of voters feel a degree of sales tax fatigue, but it seems unlikely the Seattle Transit Measure renewal will fail considering a staggering 80% of voters approved it in 2020.

But that’s not to say working people shouldn’t be upset that their elected officials keep jacking up the sales tax. As you may well already know, sales tax is a very regressive way to generate revenue, meaning the poorer you are, the more the tax costs you relative to your income. In Washington, sales tax eats up about 10% of the income of the poorest 20% of residents whereas the top 1% of earners only spend about 1.6% of their income on sales tax.

Progressive lawmakers often nod to the regressive nature of these taxes moments before voting to pass them, a song and dance where they pretend this sales tax will be the last exception to their purported goal to rebalance Washington’s unfair tax code. But instead, they keep digging themselves deeper into their already over-reliance on regressive taxation — Washington ranks number three in the country for highest sales tax when combining the state rate with the average local rate. 

To be fair, local electeds have a decent excuse: The State does not empower localities with many progressive options to raise revenue. This is particularly true for the County. King County Council Member Teresa Mosqueda, a strong advocate for progressive revenue throughout her political career, has been pushing for more tax authority for localities. Last year, Mosqueda organized a letter, garnering signatures from almost 70 elected officials, to demand the Governor pass legislation to that end. 

However, the letter wasn’t entirely picky, also asking for authority to pass higher sales taxes without voter input. 

All this can make it difficult to take Democrats at their word when they describe sales taxes as a temporary compromise on the road to something better. Washington has been traveling that road for decades now. At some point, it becomes fair to ask whether this is a detour—or the destination.