(The Center Square) – The Washington State Attorney General’s Office has filed the public investment impact disclosure for the initiative that seeks to repeal the state’s new income tax law, which one critic says amounts to “scare tactics.”
Passed during the 2026 session and signed into law by Governor Bob Ferguson, IP26-645 created a 9.9% tax on income above $1 million, or combined household income above that amount.
The law is set to go into effect in 2028 and tax revenue is slated to be collected beginning in 2029, if it survives a legal challenge and the initiative effort.
The public investment impact disclosure, or PIID for short, is what voters will see on the ballot next to IP26-645, right before “Should this measure be enacted into law?”
The impact statement reads:
“This measure would decrease funding for public K-12 education, higher education (including universities and community colleges), and human services (primarily healthcare).
Ryan Frost, budget and tax policy director at the Washington Policy Center, a nonpartisan free-market think tank, told The Center Square the impact statement is misleading to voters.
“I think it’s important for voters to separate what the initiative actually does, from what people speculate could happen in the future,” he said.
“The income tax revenues do not dedicate any revenue to K-12 education, they don’t dedicate any revenue to higher education and do not dedicate any revenue to healthcare.”
“But if you read the economic impact statement, that’s what it says will be cut if the income tax is repealed,” Frost added.
Frost explained that under state law, the attorney general lists the three largest categories of general fund spending that could be impacted by the initiative.
“In Washington, that’s always K-12 education, higher ed, and healthcare,” he said. “And so that means any initiative that affects the general fund receives the same exact warning that goes in front of voters, regardless of whether it actually changes any funding for the programs.”
PIIDs are required for any statewide ballot measures in Washington that would increase or decrease state revenue, so that voters can understand potential impacts to the state budget.
But Frost notes the vast majority of money that would come in from the income tax can be directed wherever lawmakers want to put it.
“The actual only specific allocation in the entire bill is for 5% of the revenues to go to the Fair Start for Kids‘ account. That begins in 2029. All the rest of the revenues, apart from the tax breaks, which the initiative leaves in, go to the state’s general fund,” he said.
Frost told The Center Square putting a statement on the ballot that the initiative would cause cuts to programs is misleading and inaccurate.
“The tax doesn’t even take effect until 2028. Revenues don’t come in until 2029. So, no current school district, college, healthcare system, hospital, has any funding that depends on any of this revenue, because it doesn’t exist yet.”
“How are we cutting education with money that doesn’t exist yet? I hope that that’s a question that pops into voters’ heads when they’re looking at their ballot.”
Backers of the initiative have until Monday to appeal language on the PIID.
If there are no changes, this is how the measure will appear on the November ballot for the initiative description, followed by the PIID:
“Initiative Measure No. IP26-645 concerns state and local taxes. This measure would repeal a 9.9% tax on annual individual income over $1,000,000; prohibit taxes measured by individual income and taxes on individual income or the receipt of individual income; and define ‘income.’ This measure would decrease funding for public K-12 education, higher education (including universities and community colleges), and human services (primarily healthcare).”
Frost said voters should be getting better information before casting a ballot.
“I really think voters deserve disclosures that explain in plain English what the initiative does, not this really generic language that’s really meant to be used as a scare tactic,” Frost said.
Let’s Go Washington, the group backing the repeal initiative, told The Center Square the group would release a response to the impact statement later on Friday.
The Center Square reached out to the Washington Attorney General’s Office, Invest in WA Now, the progressive advocacy organization backing the income tax, and to Democratic Party Chair Shasti Conrad for comment on the PIID, but received no response before publication.