Democrats quietly pushing rollback of estate tax increase

(The Center Square) – As majority Democrats in Olympia push ahead with a controversial income tax bill, they are also moving to roll back another tax-the-rich policy passed during the 2025 session.

Senate Bill 6347, authored by Sen. Claudia Kauffman, D-Kent, would change the rates approved a year ago for all eight brackets exactly to where they were before the last change. The wealthiest were hardest hit by last year’s change, and thus are the biggest beneficiary in the proposal.

The Center Square was unsuccessful prior to publication getting comment from Kauffman.

“I suspect that the projections of the revenue that they’re seeing from this estate tax is not panning out to be what they thought,” said Mark Harmsworth, the director of the Small Business Center at the Washington Policy Center. “It’s relatively easy for somebody in that position where they’ve retired and all they need to do is move and they won’t have to pay it in another state. I think they’ve realized that they put this thing so high...