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Women, Eastern Washington Big Supporters of High Earners Income Tax

Opinion, This Washington   April 22, 2010 at 1:37 pm Josh Feit

According to a new Survey USA poll, the high-earners income tax proposed yesterday by Bill Gates, Sr. and a coalition of labor, small businesses, and progressives,  has hefty support from exactly the sort of people you’d expect. It gets 79 percent approval from people who identify themselves as liberal, 75 percent from Democrats, and 73 percent from younger people between 18 and 34.

Republicans (57 percent) and Independents (63 percent) favor it too.

However,  here are two numbers that jumped out to me: Women like it more than men by nearly 10 points and Eastern Washington likes it more than Western Washington. Seventy percent of women support the idea, compared to 62 percent of men. And support is at 66 percent in Eastern Washington, as opposed to 63 percent in Western Washington. (Seattle is at 69 percent.)

Yes, woman are typically  more liberal than men, but how does that fit with Eastern Washington (more conservative) liking it more than Western Washington?

This is what makes 1-1077 interesting to me. It shreds a lot of party lines and hopscotches factions.

Yes, it’s an early poll—and Tim Eyman is already re-framing the debate, arguing that the initiative is really a gateway drug for an across-the-board income tax.

That spin could certainly bring the numbers down, but it looks like the “No” campaign will be up against more nuanced support for the measure.

In fact, the measure is already confounding Eyman. In a double-reverse-back-flip, another thing Eyman said about the initiative is that liberals shouldn’t like it because it doesn’t get rid of the regressive sales tax. It’s not a good sign for Eyman if he’s is already in the odd position of underscoring liberals’ case for reform—Washington’s regressive tax structure.

The Survey USA poll (of 500 people) asked: “A proposed initiative would create an income tax in Washington state on people making $200,000 per year and on couples making twice that. It would also cut the state’s portion of the property tax by 20%, and end the business and occupation tax for small businesses. Do you support? Or do you oppose? This proposed initiative?”

The margin of error was 4.2 percent.




  • http://twitter.com/fattailed fattailed

    Interesting and good news. However, the question SurveyUSA polled is significantly different from the ballot title, which reads:

    ” This measure would tax “adjusted gross income” above $400,000 joint ($200,000 individual), reduce the state property tax levy, reduce certain business and occupation taxes, and direct any increased revenues to education and health. “

    The two huge differences between the poll question and the ballot title are the 20% figure in the poll question and the “end the business and occupation tax for small businesses”, particularly the use of the word “end”. Any no campaign worth its salt will pull out all kinds of businesses identified as small that won't see a cut and will be against the income tax as raising their taxes.

    Since the B&O tax credit under 1077 would only rise to $4800, we're talking *very* small businesses.

    Not sure why SurveyUSA pushed the question so far, but I think the hard language on % property tax reduction and “ending” B&O taxes is why the results leaned so hard towards E. Washington. Supporters are going to be more than a little hard pressed to keep these ideas alive in the heat of a contested campaign.

    Still, this is good news. It just seems a bit too good to be true.

  • Jennifer

    I'll venture a guess. People in Eastern Washington are more likely to have property and small businesses, than earn over $200k a year. So this may be seen as a tax break for them.

  • Morning Fizzy

    How much does SurveyUSA charge for poll results?

  • Morning Fizzy

    No tax on sales up to $1,000,000 dollars of in-state business. Then 1/2% tax on in-state business after that – with no business income tax, still a pretty good deal.

  • misha

    ““A proposed initiative would create an income tax in Washington state on people making $200,000 per year and on heterosexual married couples making twice that. Taxes on incomes for couples between $200,000 per year and $400,000 per year will only apply to homosexuals and progressive unmarried couples who will pay thousands of dollars extra per year in gay tax.”

    fixed the opening of the poll question

  • elaineinballard

    The difference between E WA support (66%) and W WA (63%) is within the margin of error (4.2%), and Metro Seattle (69%) is not significantly different from E WA either.

  • http://twitter.com/fattailed fattailed

    $1 million a year in in-state business is a very small business in terms of the political sphere. Businesses of up to 1,000 employees trumpet their smallness as virtue. The bigger issue is that a businesses this small is desperate to get big and so doesn't identify as so small as a permanent condition.

    That all aside, the loaded wording of the poll question is the heart of the matter here.

  • http://spifflines.blogspot.com/ John Bailo

    It's a clever ploy by the asset rich to squeeze themselves in with “high income” earners and at the same time give themselves a massive tax break by cutting property taxes.

    So a person with millions in assets and land would get a tax break, but a couple of working lawyers would end up getting soaked.

  • http://spifflines.blogspot.com/ John Bailo

    People in Bellevue and Redmond too.