OLYMPIA – Washington voters are being asked to repeal or maintain an income tax with a $1 million deduction on the Nov. 3 general election ballot. The income tax, passed by the Washington Legislature in March 2026, doesn’t go into effect until January 1, 2028, with the tax on 2028’s income due in 2029. When it goes into effect, it exempts the first $1 million in income and then taxes the remaining income at a rate of 9.9%.
The income tax, enacted via Senate Bill 6346, was signed into law by Gov. Bob Ferguson and is expected to generate $3 billion for the state treasury in its first year. The state estimates 20,000-25,000 households would be subject to the 9.9% tax collection.
On the Nov. 3 general election ballot, voters are being asked to keep or reject that so-called ‘millionaire’s tax’ via the statewide initiative, I-645. A ‘yes’ vote would repeal the 9.9% income tax. A ‘no’ vote would keep the income tax in place.
In April, a lawsuit was filed against the 9.9% income tax on earnings above $1 million. That legal challenge is still working its way through the court system, but a decision about the tax’s constitutionality is likely to be decided by the Supreme Court of Washington. The Nov. 3 general election ballot, along with I-645, also includes election contests for five of the nine Supreme Court of Washington justices. The Washington state Constitution prohibits an income tax.
To help voters understand more about the ballot measure, I-645, the EverettPost.com reached out to campaigns on both sides of the issue. The EverettPost.com extended several invitations over several weeks to two groups seeking their opposition. Those groups included the “No 645” campaign and Defend Washington. Those requests to take part in a one-on-one interview to oppose I-645 were never returned, so EverettPost.com has decided to proceed with reporting the interview involving the “Vote yes on 645” campaign that did respond to our request. That interview article follows.
Jamie Herrera-Beutler is a former Republican State Rep. in the Washington Legislature from Lewis County and a former U.S. Rep. from Washington Congressional District 3. Herrera-Beutler served from 2007-2011 in the State House of Representatives. She served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2011-2023 and for part of that time was Assistant Floor Leader for House Republicans.
Herrera-Beutler is a spokesperson for the Vote Yes on 645 campaign.
“I think people need to know this is the vote before the income tax applies. They’re not going to get another bite at the apple,” Herrera-Beutler describes the significance of the statewide initiative.
“And it’s an incredibly complex issue. There are so many different moving pieces to it, but the number one thing that concerns me the most, is that voters are being told– I think they’re being misled–that this is only going to apply to millionaires,” Herrera-Beutler begins.
Her concern is about the deduction on the 9.9% income tax and the corresponding threshold at which the deduction is set, which is $1 million. I-645 made it to the Nov. 3 general election ballot when enough valid voter signatures were collected statewide to put the state law up for a vote of the people.
Herrera-Beutler says if the millionaire’s tax remains on the books, the deduction threshold will eventually drop lower and lower, exposing more families and individuals to paying the income tax. This stems, the former Congresswoman says, from what the Legislative Democrats in Olympia did with the bill that ultimately became the 9.9% income tax law, “They voted against binding themselves to the million-dollar threshold.”
When that bill was passed in the 2026 Legislative session by majority Democrats, Herrera-Beutler says, “They voted to make it easy. They won’t have to amend any statutes. They literally have a simple majority vote and the threshold is lowered.”
“So, in the future, if they lower it,” she says there’s no vote of the public. The decision power on lowering the threshold lies strictly with the State House and Senate who would then need a signature by the governor to lower the deduction, as an example. to $900,000 or $750,000 or lower. “I think the average person would say, ‘gosh, that doesn’t pass the straight face test’. And that’s the big point,” Herrera-Beutler suggests, “they’re going to lower it. They voted to ensure that they could easily expand it without a vote of the people.”
“There were several (Legislative) amendments that were offered to require that it immediately goes to the people if it ever gets expanded, to require that it stays at a million dollars, to require that if it does get lowered, people get notified. All of those were soundly rejected,” she says by the state Legislature.”
To bolster her argument regarding the income tax threshold level, Herrera-Beutler points to a recent campaign comment made in early October by State Rep. Cindy Ryu, a Democrat running for a state Senate seat in Shoreline. In a candidate debate on KUOW, Ryu indicated she thinks the state income tax level should be $250,000, not $1 million.
“Let’s take a look at how well can most of us live? Pretty well at $250,000,” Ryu said during a debate hosted by KUOW.
Ryu’s candid remark about the lower threshold is a red flag for Herrera-Beutler, who points out that in the days and weeks since Ryu suggested a far lower income tax threshold than the law’s stated $1 million, “Notice that none of the (Democratic) leaders nor the governor said anything about that. They didn’t say, ‘no, she’s wrong, we’re not going to do that’. They didn’t say, ‘no, that’s a bad idea’. They didn’t say boo about it. That silence to me is defeaning.”
That lack of push-back from Legislative Democrats, Herrera-Beutler believes, shows the eventual likelihood for a reduction in the income tax deduction threshold. “We can point to the vote where a majority of them voted against locking in the million-dollar requirement. I have written federal and state law. I know what it means when a lawmaker, specifically refuses to abide by or agree to that kind of a requirement.”
In Herrera-Beutler’s conclusion, she says those actions speak louder than campaign words, “And I think it’s important to take lawmakers seriously that when they say they’re going to expand it to everyone that they are going to, they’ve taken the steps to do that.”
Another contention Herrera-Beutler cites is where the expected $3 billion a year in high-earner income tax will go within the state budget. Advocates for the millionaire’s tax say it will go to education and health care, but Herrera-Beutler disputes that claim.
“There is no money in this income tax bill that was earmarked for K-12 education or healthcare,” Herrera-Beutler asserts. “If you read the the bill, there are two sections to it. There’s the intent section, which is a wish list. It is not legally binding. I’ve written state laws. I’ve written federal laws. But if you read the legally binding portion of the bill, it says this is an income tax with a million-dollar deduction, and it does not earmark any of it to K-12 education or healthcare. As someone who has had to earmark money before, I can tell you that if you want to protect money for a stream of income, you put a name on it.”
In that absence, the former state legislator offers, “And so to say that you’re going to cut–if you vote ‘yes’ on this initiative, it’s gonna cut money—first, you can’t cut money that won’t be collected until 2029. So, if we repeal this (on Nov. 3), you’re not taking any money out of education or health care. It hasn’t even been collected yet.”
Herrera-Beutler chalks up that opponent portrayal to campaign politics. “Only in Olympia can you cut something that doesn’t exist, but the more profound point is that the wish list portion of this bill is not legally binding.”
Recounting the chronology of legislative events in Olympia that led to the final income tax bill, Herrera-Beutler says of the majority Democrats, “They were offered an amendment to earmark half of this money for K-12 education. It was rejected. They were offered an amendment to earmark, 25% of this money to Medicaid. Both of those are incredibly important things–that’s Healthcare and K-12 education–they rejected it. So they’re saying this is for healthcare and education, but they refuse to earmark that money.” Based on those decisions against earmarking the money, Gov. Ferguson authorized the bill into law.
Reflecting on that series of decisions about the money going to the state general fund rather than dedicated education or health-care funding, Herrera-Beutler invokes, “I’ve been around enough politicians to know it’s because they don’t want that money earmarked there. So now they’re coming back and saying, oh, it’s going to cut these things. We can’t cut something that doesn’t exist, number one, but furthermore, they weren’t even willing to put this money in dedicated lanes.”
“The whole thing is, I think, a political ploy.” “So, what they’re telling us is not true,” Herrera-Beutler says examining the chronology of legislative events, concluding, “but the public perception has been muddied. And I think it’s because it’s starkly different from the legal reality.”
Included in the fine print of the state income tax law, adding to the complexity Herrera-Beutler described previously, is the Legislative Democrats decision to remove income protections that had previously been assigned to public-employee pension retirement funds.
Herrera-Beutler says the majority Democrats, “They went into the bill and erased long-standing protections for public employee retirement checks. So, previous to this, there are 11 different public employee pension funds in the Washington state statute. It specifically said they shall not pay any state tax. It also exempted them from municipal tax and others. So, for 80 years, pension funds have had this protection and when they put in place this income tax bill, they went into all separate 11 of those plans and they erased the exemption.”
That question, “Why would they erase the exemption?,” Herrera-Beutler asks, “If they did not intend to lower the tax (threshold), because obviously, no retired teacher I know makes a million dollars. Or firefighter.” Her conclusion is that the public employee pensions were exempted to eventually make those accounts subject to an income tax threshold below $1 million.
Herrera-Beutler applies the on-going budgeting problems in the Olympia Legislature to the equation of eventually lowering the income tax threshold, “In 2029, when it’s scheduled to be collected, they will come into that legislative session–that budget session–with about a $3 billion dollar shortfall from what they have already planned to spend. So, we already know, just taxing millionaires isn’t enough,” to reach a balanced budget with the addition of an income tax, thus requiring a reduction in the income tax deduction threshold or some combination of raising other taxes or lowering spending.
“I am well aware of how lawmakers work,” Herrera-Beutler says of her Olympia experience, “and what the goal here is. I immediately felt like this is something that’s going to hurt working Washingtonians, and they need to know that this initiative is about repealing the income tax before it is too late.”
I-645 is a statewide initiative on the Nov. 3 general election ballot. Ballots must be postmarked by Nov. 3 or be submitted to a county ballot box by 8 p.m. on Nov. 3 to be eligible for tabulation. A ‘yes’ vote would repeal the 9.9% income tax. A ‘no’ vote would keep the income tax in place.
Let’s Go Washington and its founder, Brian Heywood, filed with the Washington Secretary of State’s office to conduct a statewide initiative on the state income tax law. On May 4, 2026, that initiative was given a serial number (IP26-645) and was cleared to gather signatures. On July 2, 2026, Let’s Go Washington submitted the signatures it gathered for SoS review. On July 15, 2026, Initiative 645 was certified for the ballot by Secretary of State, Steve Hobbs.