I’m at the Gig Harbor Chamber of Commerce meeting, listening to Reps. Hans Dunshee and Gary Alexander debate Referendum 52, which would weatherize schools and use a bottled water tax to service the bond debt.

Rep. Larry Seaquist is in the audience, and asked why the referendum is important — and worth a tax increase.

“Dan Evans went out to the people in ‘72 with what would be the equivalent of $2 billion today to stimulate jobs,” he said. “I think that every kid in the school, in the state, ought to have a healthy building …. I think that’s our paramount duty,” he said. “There’s nothing in this room that if we increased (the cost) by 1.5 percent, you would be able to tell the difference.”

Rep. Alexander: “In the same four years, the previous four years, the capitol budget grew by almost 43 percent,” he said. “Now, all the sudden, when we hit the debt service limit we have to look at other types of debt service” opportunities. Alexander said he’s against R52 not because he doesn’t want healthy schools, but because he does want fiscal responsibility.

Another guest asked why not take a bit of lottery money to pay for the improvements. Alexander said the lottery brings in about $150 million a year, and some of that easily could have been diverted. Dunshee said that’s a policy call, “you can stop construction to do this,” he said, which would pit maintenance against construction.

Another asked how the increased debt would affect the state’s bond rating. Dunshee said that the state treasurer said this debt would not affect the bond rating, and that Washington is already in a better position than many states. “This recession is the biggest thing that any of us have ever seen in our lives,” he said. “We are cutting,” he said, but this is a good investment.

Alexander, however, said the state treasurer also has told the Legislature that they may not have enough in the bank to pay bills. “I am concerned about the bond rating.” “We are at our constitutional debt limit,” he said — 9 percent. “Our debt service costs are somewhere in the top third” of other states, he said.

Now, time for closing statements.

Alexander said it’s been a good debate. “I just want to sum up by saying it’s always enjoyable to discuss issues with my comrade over here,” he said, referring to Rep. Dunshee. “I just believe that at this point in time, Ref 52 is not in taxpayers’ best interests,” he said. He also said there are many important issues on the ballot this year and encouraged voters to learn about them all.

Dunshee: “We may disagree, but it’s how you disagree that matters in Democracy,” he said, of the debate. He said this referendum would save money, “I would offer to you to go to the web site — healthyschoolsforwa.org — you can see examples, you can see testimonials, you can see financing,” he said.

Tags: Referendum 52, taxes

Watch this week’s edition of The Impact right here. Host Jessica Gao goes over the budget, which Gov. Chris Gregoire just signed, and what it will mean for higher education.

Tags: Budget, Higher Education, taxes, The Impact

This week’s Q&A is with Janetta Taylor with the Department of Revenue. I was interested in finding out how the department is dealing with nearly 70 changes to the tax code worth $800 million that go into effect on a handful of different dates — including tomorrow, when cigarettes will cost $1 more per pack.

Taylor told me about some big changes to the tax code that could help local businesses, what it would take to implement an income tax, and much more.

Q: How many changes did the Legislature make, and what does the DOR have to do to implement those changes?

Taylor: With this session we have 68 changes that came through, which is quite a few. It will be a challenge for the department to make sure that we contact all the businesses that are affected. That really is our focus: educate, educate, educate.

We have a wide variety of mechanisms to do that. In Washington, most businesses and household are connected to the Web. The first thing we did is post the information on our Web page. There’s a link to all the information with the write-ups. Of course, also some of Mike’s (Mike Gowrylow, communications director at DOR) media releases. And we also try to target mailings to the specific businesses that are impacted. We have about 450,000 registered businesses. Not all of these changes affect all businesses. We look at businesses by their activity and we tailor specific mailings to them and try to get them all the information they need.

We also have special things going on with electronic filing. A large number of our tax payers actually file electronically so we can send them e-mails or send them alerts in the system.

Q: The $1 per pack addition to the cigarette tax goes into effect tomorrow (May 1). What did you have to do to implement something like that?

Taylor: The ones that start tomorrow were quite challenging because we did have a short time frame. We actually started planning before the bill was signed. (more…)

Tags: Department of Revenue, income tax, Legislature, taxes

Starting Saturday, some of the new taxes will go into effect. That includes the $1 per pack cigarette tax.

To read more on when taxes go into effect, go here.

Tags: taxes

Gov. Chris Gregoire is scheduled to sign into law the $800 million increase in taxes today. And Jordan Schrader with The News Tribune has the scoop on an effort to thwart the soda pop tax.

I’ll be there blogging on the bill signing and TVW will tape it to air this afternoon. Check back with the blog at 1:30 to follow along.

Tags: soda pop, taxes

Tags: Budget, Marty Brown, R71 lawsuit, Rob McKenna, supreme court, taxes

I was at a journalism conference all day yesterday and missed the House vote on the tax package. I’ll post the TVW video as soon as it’s online. In the meantime, here’s a story and a blog post on it.

Update: Here’s the video:

Tags: taxes

Brad Shannon sums up the current tax discussions here. In short: On Day 23 of special session, there is no deal.

Need to take your mind off special session? Jessica Gao will discuss healthcare and other public policy on tonight’s edition of The Impact. That airs at 7 and 10 p.m.

Tags: special session, taxes, The Impact

Here’s Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown and Sen. Ed Murray talking to reporters about the Senate’s newest proposal. In the videos, Brown says the new beer tax would amount to about 43 cents per six pack — and microbrews are exempt.

And here’s Gov. Chris Gregoire, who offers her opinion on whether the proposal is a “ticket out of town”:

Tags: taxes

This week, the Thursday Q&A is posted on Friday. Why? The Legislature hasn’t seen much action this week, meaning many lawmakers are back to their jobs — and not in town, ready to be interviewed. But today I tracked down Rep. Richard DeBolt and Rep. Lynn Kessler. Here’s what they had to say:

Q: Thanks for making time to talk to me. What’s new?

DeBolt: We know nothing. I have a little sign up that says, “I know nothing.”

Q: What have you been up to?

DeBolt: We have been going back to work. We also, though, have been trying to keep people informed about the things that are going on.

Q: Where do things stand now?

DeBolt: The capital budget is still moving in somewhat of a bipartisan fashion. Somewhat is the key word.

The other thing is, the budget is pretty close between the two. But the tax package still seems miles away.

Q: You’ve said you know nothing and aren’t involved in the tax negotiations. What do you see as your role in the process at this point?

DeBolt: What we’ve been doing this session is telling the people of the state of Washington what’s in it and making it more transparent. It just shows that there’s a lack of transparency when we don’t even know what’s being considered and we’re public officials.

Q: So from what I’ve read, there’s a $200 million disagreement on the tax packages between the House and the Senate. Can you give me any more information on that?

DeBolt: From what we understand, the Senate wants a sales tax and this kickback to people and the House wants a B&O tax increase and they have a myriad of other taxes.

Q: Is the “kickback” the “Working Families” tax credit for poorer families?

DeBolt: Working families tax credit, or redistribution of wealth. Whatever you want to call it.

Q: Now that regular session is over and a lot of the policy bills have been decided, can you tell me some highlights and disappointments from  your perspective?

DeBolt: To me, the positive of the session was the constitutional amendment to protect our police officers. That worked well, I think that was a big deal. One of the shining moments of our caucus that we were able to be a part of that.

The biggest disappointment of the year would be the taxpayer protection act being repealed. (more…)

Tags: DeBolt, Kessler, Q&A, taxes