Washington
State & Local Taxes in 2015
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Washington Tax Code Features
Progressive Features
• Sales tax base excludes groceries
Regressive Features
• No personal income tax
• Imposes a gross receipts tax in lieu of a corporate profits tax
• Enacted a refundable Earned Income Tax Credit, but lawmakers have failed to provide funding for the credit,
• Comparatively high reliance on sales taxes
• Comparatively high combined state and local sales tax rate
• Comparatively high cigarette tax rate
• Fails to provide a property tax “circuit breaker” credit for low-income non-elderly taxpayers
Tax Changes Enacted in 2013 & 2014
• No significant developments
ITEP Tax Inequality Index
According to ITEP’s Tax Inequality Index, Washington has the most unfair state and local tax system in the country. States with regressive tax structures have negative tax inequality indexes, meaning that incomes are less equal in those states after state and local taxes than before (See Appendix B for state-by-state rankings and more details).
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