Washington has no state income tax because the state constitution treats your earnings as property, and property taxes in Washington must be charged at a single uniform rate capped at 1% of value. That combination makes a graduated income tax illegal and a flat income tax pointless, and the only fix, a constitutional amendment, requires a two-thirds vote in both chambers of the legislature followed by voter ratification. Voters have rejected income tax proposals ten times in a row since 1934.
Income Counts as Property Under the State Constitution
Article VII, Section 1 of the Washington State Constitution defines property as “everything, whether tangible or intangible, subject to ownership,” and requires that taxes “be uniform upon the same class of property within the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax.”1Justia. Washington Constitution Article VII – Revenue and Taxation
That definition is the hinge. Because you own your earnings, your earnings are property. Because they are property, any tax on them has to meet the uniformity rule, which means one rate for everyone in the class. Graduated brackets, where someone earning $200,000 pays a higher rate than someone earning $50,000, treat the same class of property differently depending on how much of it you have. The clause does not allow that.
Culliton v. Chase Locked the Interpretation In
In 1932, Washington voters approved Initiative 69, a graduated income tax. One year later, the state Supreme Court struck it down in Culliton v. Chase. The court held that income is property under Article VII and that a graduated tax on it violates the uniformity requirement.2vLex United States. Culliton v. Chase, 174 Wash. 363, 25 P.2d 81 (Wash. 1933)
The ruling was 5-4. That narrow margin has not weakened its force. Culliton has stood for more than 90 years, and every income tax proposal since has had to confront it.
The 1% Cap Makes Even a Flat Income Tax Useless
Article VII, Section 2 adds a second barrier. The total of all regular tax levies on real and personal property “shall not in any year exceed one percent of the true and fair value of such property.”3Washington State Legislature. Amendment 95 (2002) – Art. 7 Section 2 Limitation on Levies The cap applies to any tax the courts classify as a property tax.4Washington State Department of Revenue. Homeowner’s Guide to Property Tax
Here is where the two provisions combine into an airtight barrier. Culliton made income a form of property. The 1% cap limits any property tax to 1% of value. So even a flat-rate income tax, which could technically satisfy the uniformity clause, could never charge more than 1% of your earnings, and it would have to share that 1% ceiling with the property taxes already levied on real estate. The math makes it not worth doing. That is why no one in the legislature seriously proposes a flat income tax either.
Citizens Can’t Amend the Constitution Directly
Because the barrier sits in Article VII, the only path to a traditional graduated income tax is a constitutional amendment. Article XXIII sets the rules: two-thirds of the members elected to both the House and the Senate must approve the proposed amendment, and then a majority of voters must ratify it at the next general election.5Justia. Washington Constitution Article XXIII – Amendments
One detail surprises many Washington residents: citizen initiatives cannot amend the state constitution. Initiatives can create or change statutes, but constitutional changes have to originate in the legislature. The two-thirds supermajority is unavoidable, which is why the amendment route has never succeeded in a state where voters keep saying no to income taxes.
Ten Straight Rejections at the Ballot Box
Washington voters have faced income tax proposals 11 times. Only the first, in 1932, passed, and the courts killed it the next year. Every proposal since has lost, usually by wide margins:6Washington Secretary of State. Income Tax Ballot Measures
- 1934: Rejected, 57% No
- 1936: Rejected, 78% No
- 1938: Rejected, 67% No
- 1942: Rejected, 66% No
- 1944: Rejected, 70% No
- 1970: Rejected, 68% No
- 1973: Rejected, 77% No
- 1975: Rejected, 67% No
- 1982: Rejected, 66% No
- 2010: Rejected, 64% No
Opposition has never dipped below 57%. The most recent attempt, Initiative 1098 in 2010, would have taxed only income above $200,000 for individuals and $400,000 for couples. Even with that narrow target, voters rejected it by nearly two to one.
The Capital Gains Tax Workaround
In 2021, the legislature found a way around the constitutional problem by taxing a transaction instead of ownership. The capital gains tax charges 7% on profits from the sale of long-term capital assets such as stocks, bonds, and business interests, with a standard deduction that started at $250,000 per individual and is adjusted annually for inflation. For 2025, the adjusted deduction is $278,000.7Washington State Department of Revenue. Capital Gains Tax The statute is codified at Chapter 82.87 RCW.8Washington State Legislature. Chapter 82.87 RCW
Challengers argued the tax was really an income tax dressed up as something else. In Quinn v. State (2023), the Washington Supreme Court disagreed, holding that the capital gains tax is an excise tax on the act of selling an asset, not a property tax on the asset itself. Because it taxes a transaction, it does not have to satisfy the uniformity clause or the 1% cap.9Washington State Courts. Quinn v. State The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the challenge in January 2024.10SCOTUSblog. Quinn v. Washington (23-171)
The excise classification is not new in Washington. The business and occupation tax and the sales tax both operate as excise taxes on activity rather than property taxes on ownership. The capital gains tax extends the same logic to investment profits realized through a sale.
The 2026 Push and What It’s Up Against
The debate is live right now. In 2024, the legislature passed Initiative 2111 on bipartisan votes, embedding a prohibition on new statewide personal income taxes into state law. In early 2026, the state Senate moved in the opposite direction and approved Senate Bill 6346, which would impose a 9.9% tax on personal income above $1 million per year for individuals and married couples. Some versions of the bill tie the tax to a required constitutional amendment vote before it could take effect.
SB 6346 is drafted as a direct tax on income, not a transaction, so the Quinn reasoning that saved the capital gains tax does not obviously apply. Under Culliton, a tax structured this way needs a constitutional amendment to survive, and the bill’s own supporters acknowledge that by pairing it with a potential amendment vote. The outcome depends on whether the legislature can muster the two-thirds supermajority to put an amendment on the ballot, and whether voters would then break a pattern they have held for nearly a century.