Viet Nguyen: How Washington Banned the Income Tax
Viet Q. Nguyen, a Seattle-based technology communications executive and former president of 5G Americas, highlights that Washington’s new income tax is being framed as limited, while warning that similar policies elsewhere have expanded far beyond their original scope. He argues the measure reflects a broader pattern of incremental tax growth that ultimately reaches far more people than initially promised.
On March 30, 2026, Governor Bob Ferguson signed ESSB 6346 into law, imposing a 9.9% tax on personal income above $1 million. It was the first income tax passed in Washington State since 1935.
To get there, the Legislature had to do something remarkable. In 2024, lawmakers had adopted Initiative 2111 by overwhelming bipartisan margins (76-21 in the House, 38-11 in the Senate), banning the state from taxing “any individual person on any form of personal income.” Less than two years later, the same Legislature amended that ban to carve out an exception for the new tax. They also attached an emergency clause to prevent voters from challenging it by referendum, even though the tax doesn’t take effect until 2028.
The bill’s supporters call it an excise tax on “the receipt of income,” not an income tax, because Washington courts have held since 1933 that income is property and a graduated income tax violates the state constitution’s uniformity clause. The bill’s opponents call it exactly what it is: a graduated income tax with a different label.
Both sides are going to court. Former Attorney General Rob McKenna and the Citizen Action Defense Fund have filed a constitutional challenge. The Freedom Foundation is expected to follow. Republican legislators are collecting signatures for a ballot repeal. The case will likely reach the Washington Supreme Court, where five of nine seats are turning over by November 2026.