Millionaires Tax Can’t Apply To Union Pensions
The Millionaires Tax can’t apply to union pensions, no matter what some are claiming, because no one in a union is getting $84,000/month pension checks. That’s right, $84,000 per month is what a retiree would have to get from their retirement to hit the $1,000,000 threshold for Washington’s new Millionaires Tax.
A teacher "would have to work for 278 years to earn $1 million in annual pension benefits – this is impossible,” writes the Economic Opportunity Institute (EOI) in its analysis.
Writes EOI:
An incredibly small fraction of Washington households has retirement distributions and income sufficient to pay the Millionaires Tax.
Out of all Washington state households, 0.1% have retirement income and 0.08% have pensions plus additional income that brings total annual AGI over $1 million: that’s only 3,870 households with taxable retirement income, and just 2,870 with taxable pensions and annuities.
Households with over $1 million in AGI are making an average of $2.6 million per year, with only $104,543 (on average per year) derived from retirement accounts. In other words, the average tax filer with over $1 million in AGI who will be subject to the Millionaires Tax receives nearly all their income in the form of wages, business income, dividends, and/or capital gains – not retirement accounts.
VIDEO: WA State Labor Council President April Sims Explains Why The Millionaires Tax Can’t Apply To Union Pensions
So why doesn’t the Millionaires Tax explicitly exclude pensions and retirement accounts? Because the people who should be paying the Millionaire Tax could use that as a loophole to defer income and avoid paying what they owe. We know that the super-rich already exploit tax loopholes to avoid paying their share.
