OLYMPIA, Wash — A new capital gains tax was proposed Tuesday by the Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction.
The tax would be on money Washington residents make from investments like stocks. It would affect people who make more than $25,000 off those investments.
That money would do two things.
One, pay for special education, another thing McLeary said the state needs to do better. Two, replace some statewide property tax.
In 2012, the Washington State Supreme Court said that the state government was failing its number one duty: to pay for basic education.
In 2017, the state has finally found a way to comply with that ruling and pay for schools, they increased the statewide property tax by $0.91.
In the process, they also told school districts they had to cap the amount of local property taxes they charged.
The court put the cap at $1.50 per $1,000 of property value.
That means someone with a house worth $100,000 would pay $150 per year in taxes.
In Spokane, the rate used to be $4, so they have to cut back dramatically. Even with that extra state money, the district is going to lose some revenue.
Tuesday, the state school superintendent Chris Reykdal proposed to change that.
Rather than creating a 1.5 percent flat cap, his budget would cap levies at 22 percent of state and federal revenues. That means take however much money the district gets from the state and feds, take roughly a quarter of that, and that's how much the district can ask for in levies.
So how does all of this affect those bond measures coming up in November? The answer is, It doesn't! A bond is something completely different, not covered by any of this! This stuff only talks about levies. Levies are property taxes used to pay for extra school programs.
The thing on the ballot is a bond. That's a property tax too, but it's separate, bonds are used to pay for buildings and equipment.
Even if this proposal becomes a reality, the exact impact on district budgets remain to be seen.
