Tax Advisory Votes on Your Ballot

Staff Report

Two advisory votes will appear on the statewide general election ballot this fall allowing Washingtonians to express their support or opposition to revenue measures approved earlier this year by the Legislature.

Advisory Vote No. 14 addresses House Bill 2768, which extended the insurance premium tax to some insurance for stand-alone family dental plans.

Advisory Vote No. 15 addresses Second Engrossed Substitute House Bill 2778, which imposed certain limitations on the retail sales and use of tax exemptions for alternative-fuel vehicles.

These nonbinding measures ask voters whether they think the Legislature should maintain or repeal revenue-generating bills that lawmakers passed earlier this year to help balance the supplemental operating budget. The Legislature is not obligated to act on the results of the advisory votes.

The advisory votes are required by a provision of Initiative 960, approved in 2007. That initiative also required a two-thirds vote in both chambers of the Legislature to raise taxes, but the state Supreme Court later ruled that provision unconstitutional.