{"id":99114,"date":"2009-12-23T18:54:25","date_gmt":"2009-12-23T23:54:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/northwestvoices\/2010581685_tistheseasonfortaxes.html?syndication=rss"},"modified":"2009-12-23T18:54:25","modified_gmt":"2009-12-23T23:54:25","slug":"tis-the-season-for-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/99114","title":{"rendered":"‘Tis the season for taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virginia native weighs in on our not-so-bad tax system<\/strong><\/p>\n

Editor, The Times:<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been amused by the recent opinions and letters calling Washington state\u2019s tax system regressive and hurting business [\u201cWhy do so many oppose a state income tax?,\u201d Opinion, Northwest Voices, Dec. 16]. The fact is we would not have the caliber of workers and businesses under any other system.<\/p>\n

I recently moved to Washington from Virginia due to two major factors: Washington\u2019s thriving tech industry and no state income tax.<\/p>\n

No income tax allows companies in Washington to effectively pay employees more than elsewhere. Virginia\u2019s 5.75 percent income tax was a hefty haircut on my total compensation, especially with an additional average 5 percent sales tax.<\/p>\n

Washington\u2019s tax policy helped lure me away from another company in a different state. Plus, a higher sales tax and no income tax puts the right incentives in place for a thriving economy. It encourages people to save and invest their money versus to spend and consume, creating the infrastructure and capital we need to continue to develop Washington\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

And as for business, just look around.<\/p>\n

Washington\u2019s economy is among the top performers in the country during this recession. While unemployment is up and some businesses are hurting, they\u2019re actually doing well relative to other parts of the country. The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council recently rated Washington among the top five most friendly states for entrepreneurs. And everyone knows that job growth begins with small businesses.<\/p>\n

States with the highest income taxes are actually the ones suffering the most. California is bankrupt, and New York is almost there. We should not be taking tax policy advice from them, no matter how progressive they seem.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s keep the income tax out of Washington so we can continue to attract talented people to work for our thriving small businesses.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Samuel J. Fetchero, Bellevue<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Virginia native weighs in on our not-so-bad tax system Editor, The Times: I\u2019ve been amused by the recent opinions and letters calling Washington state\u2019s tax system regressive and hurting business [\u201cWhy do so many oppose a state income tax?,\u201d Opinion, Northwest Voices, Dec. 16]. The fact is we would not have the caliber of workers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}