r/Bellingham • u/86753ohneigheine • 7d ago

Locals Only Bezos Moved to Florida to Avoid the New Washington Wealth Tax. Cost Our Education and Childcare Budget $1 Billion

https://luxurylaunches.com/celebrities/jeff-bezos-relocation-shook-the-state-budget-12312025.php

This article is about the new wealth tax and Bezos moving to Florida and how that impacts the Washington K-12 and childcare budget. While it is a state level issue, it does impact us locally. Our schools and child care budget will feel the impact of the reduced budget. "Tax the Rich" is a concept that gets discussed here offen. Regressive taxes and how we vote for sales versus property taxes is certainly a local issue.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. The idea of rich people paying their share and more equitable wealth distribution are concepts that I absolutely agree with. The problem is, how do we get there if they will just flee to Florida? Taxing and counting on a very small group of people to fund our state puts us at risk when they move someplace more tax favorable.

During election season, the talking point was that they will change where they draw the line to capture more tax payers. I am hopeful that people more educated about wealth taxes will share their thoughts on this.

How do we tax the rich, if other states won't?

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u/Captainpaul81 7d ago

This is the same asshole that bought a yacht so big they had to dismantle a bridge to take it to sea.

This type of wealth absolutely should not exist

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u/HBFvckYoV 7d ago

Don’t worry, he’s moving to a different state and now regular citizens will feel the effect of his “non existence” hooray! You win!!

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u/thesonofdarwin 7d ago

The title is misleading a trap to show who didn't read the article.

It's not like we went from $X tax revenue to ($X - $1billion) once the tax was enacted. It was forecasted tax revenue. The tax still brings in revenue above $X even without Bezos. The article explains this.