Washington State voters will get a chance to accept or reject the 9.9 percent income tax on millionaires approved by the Legislature, which broke the state’s taboo against levying income taxes.
Page F4From§Eachthe midnight edition — 28 September 2026
The millionaire ask in 2023: pay more. The millionaire ask on Washington's 2026 ballot: repeal the 9.9 percent.
As it ran on the front
The filing is short. Washington's Legislature put a 9.9 percent income tax on millionaires on the books, and as of the Times item of 27 September the measure goes to the voters to accept or reject. What the rate broke, per that item, was the state's taboo on levying income taxes. Taboos do not appear on a revenue table. The rate does. Nine point nine cents of every taxed dollar in, ninety point one cents left where it was.
Now set the dated drawer beside it. I have the headline and not the signers' arithmetic, so I will not put a figure in their mouths. The headline is the ask, and the ask was more. Three years and five months later, the ask printed on a Washington ballot is zero. That is the reconciliation: one request declined to name a number, and the request that followed it names one exactly.…
…(cont) The case for none is portable, and it has been run. On 10 September 2026 a tally came out of New York. The year before, the warnings had arrived from Fox News, from hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, and from grocery chain chief executive John Catsimatidis, all insisting wealthy New York City residents were panicking at the prospect of a mayor, then-state Representative Zohran Mamdani, who would have them pay more toward services. Ackman gave the mechanism: "It only takes a handful of successful people to leave to decimate the city's tax base." New York raised the taxes. More millionaires moved in. That is the count, hon. The handful arrived.
Mind the register. Under that accounting, 9.9 is "even more" and zero is the baseline, which would make the 2023 headline "even more" as well, and the millionaires who signed it politicians.
So the two columns. One says pay more and declines to specify. One says repeal and specifies to the tenth of a percent. The services on the other side of those 9.9 cents are the ones the state is told there is no money for. There is money.
“They put out an op-ed on Tax Day about wanting to pay more, and the minute a legislature actually printed a rate next to their names, there's a repeal on the ballot. Ackman said a handful of rich guys leaving would decimate the tax base — New York raised it and more millionaires moved in, so that threat is a bluff with a press office. It's 9.9 cents on millionaire dollars versus the stuff your kid's school does not have, and they know exactly which one they're asking you to vote away.”
“Nobody here is against paying a fair share — the Legislature broke a taboo, the voters get the final say, that's democracy, that's the whole story. Did I say taboo? That doesn't sound like me. And New York, look, more millionaires moved in, which proves the tax made no difference, so why keep it — I'm not being defensive, you're the one being defensive.”
The receipts
Tuesday is Tax Day in America, one of the most stressful days of the year, when many taxpayers will finally end their procrastination, file their federal returns, and hope for a refund from the IRS. But for many of the nation's wealthiest, it's just another Tuesday.
· Guess What Happened After New York Raised Taxes on the Rich? More Millionaires Moved In from the morgue, 10 Sep 2026
· Forget paying your ‘fair share’ of taxes. Here are 5 ways politicians want even more from the morgue, 15 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.