LETTER: Repeal income tax

Published 1:30 am Saturday, May 30, 2026

Our state government is making another unconstitutional grab for our wallets. The 9.9 percent income tax recently passed is blatantly unconstitutional. Our Supreme Court so ruled in 1933 in Culliton v. Chase.

A state income tax requires a constitutional amendment, as even honest Democrat state legislators will admit.

The state Supreme Court confirmed this in 1960 when it ruled that “The court is unwilling to recede from the position announced in its repeated decisions.” It added “the constitution may be amended by vote of the people. Such a constitutional amendment was rejected by popular vote in 1934.”

The people of Washington state after 1934 rejected five more times by overwhelming majorities constitutional amendments authorizing a state income tax, and four times initiatives authorizing such a tax, the last time in 2010.

In 2024, our state Legislature passed Initiative 2111, forbidding a state income tax, forestalling the initiative going on the ballot, where it likely would have passed overwhelmingly.

Now those same legislators have passed the same income tax they know is unconstitutional, they know the majority of the citizens of Washington state don’t want, and they themselves voted to prohibit just two years ago.

What can we do about it?

Sign the petition to place Initiative IP26-645 on the ballot in November, repealing the unconstitutional income tax. Ask at your local political party offices if they have petition forms, or check in the next weeks outside supermarkets for opportunities to sign.

390,000 signatures will need to be gathered by July 2.

Kaj Ahlburg

Port Angeles