House members from Clark County voted mostly along party lines on the $680 million tax package the House of Representatives passed early Tuesday on a 52-45 vote.
The exception was Rep. Tim Probst, D-Vancouver, who cast his vote with the Republican minority and against the bill.
“I promised the people I would not increase taxes, and I stood by my promise,” Probst said in an e-mail Tuesday.
The bill would repeal a number of tax exemptions, increase cigarette taxes by $1 per pack, raise business taxes on service providers including lawyers and accountants, and change the way out-of-state businesses are taxed.
Unlike the Senate’s revenue bill, it would not enact a general sales tax increase.
Rep. Jaime Herrera, R-Camas, called the House bill “potentially the highest tax increase in Washington state history.”
“This budget could be balanced with common sense and the courage to use a new approach,” she said in a statement. “It is a smokescreen to say our only choices are either massive cuts or massive tax hikes.”
Herrera, who is running for Congress, said her solution to the state’s $2.8 billion budget deficit would be to restructure the state’s delivery of health care, “choose education over welfare,” renegotiate health and pay benefits for state employees and cut rates on taxes for small employers.
Exemption repeal
Rep. Jim Moeller, D-Vancouver, voted for the tax package, but only after casting the lone vote among the Clark County delegation against “repealing the repeal” of the nonresident sales tax exemption enjoyed by Oregon residents who shop in Washington. Moeller supports charging sales taxes to Oregonians.
Many Vancouver business owners say repealing the exemption will cost them Oregon customers. But Moeller calls it simply “unfair.”
“Sixty thousand of my constituents go across that bridge every day,” he said Tuesday. “They have to pay Oregon income tax and they get no special consideration, while at the same time Oregonians can come over here to my district and shop tax–free.”
Moeller added that the program is “rife with abuse.”
“Unfortunately, there are Washingtonians who have both Washington and Oregon driver’s licenses, and as a matter of convenience, to get out of paying their fair share, they show that (Oregon) ID to escape the tax. They rip off their neighbors and their fellow citizens,” he said.
The repeal of the exemption remained in the final bill. It will yield about $78 million per biennium for the state coffers, Moeller said.
License scofflaws
Still alive is a bill addressing the problem of Washington residents who try to avoid taxes and vehicle license fees by registering their cars and trucks in Oregon.
House Bill 2436, sponsored by Moeller, would reinstate a successful program to crack down on car-license scofflaws with the help of state patrol officers, a state auditor and a crew of volunteers. The Legislature approved the popular program in 2007 but it lost funding in 2009.
Under Moeller’s bill, the program would support itself through the fees and fines it generates.
HB 2436 passed the House unanimously on Feb. 12 but remains in the Senate Rules Committee. Because it’s one of a long list of bills considered “necessary to implement the budget,” its fate will be decided in a House-Senate conference committee, Moeller said.
Hope for Larch
On another issue of interest to Clark County, Moeller said he believes the efforts of the Southwest Washington delegation to keep Larch Corrections Center open will succeed.
“I think it’s pretty much agreed that there will be a compromise to keep at least half of Larch open,” he said.
