Some states are reviving a push to tax the rich

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Some states are reviving a push to tax the rich

2026-03-12 00:36 Last Updated At：00:41

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Chuck Collins figures he won life’s lottery by inheriting vast sums of money through his great-grandfather Oscar Mayer’s processed meat company, but rather than fight to protect every dime Collins has helped push to hike taxes on the ultrarich like himself.

He was successful in helping implement a higher tax in Massachusetts on income over $1 million, and the idea has already taken hold in a handful of other blue states, including California, Maryland, Minnesota and New Jersey. Lawmakers in the state of Washington, which doesn't have an income tax, could send the governor this week a measure that would impose one on million-dollar earners.

“I think people are waking up to the harms of these inequalities,” said Collins, a founding member of the group Patriotic Millionaires, which calls for higher taxes on the country’s super affluent. “Including people who have wealth, who say, if we keep going down this road, it ain’t going to end well for anybody.”

Since a state Supreme Court decision nearly a century ago shot down an income tax, Washington has stood out as being one of few states controlled by Democrats without a tax on wages or salaries — though it does tax certain investment proceeds.

Facing a budget shortage, lawmakers are debating a proposal that would create a nearly 10% annual tax on personal earnings over $1 million. If adopted, the tax would collect billions of dollars of new revenue that would be designed to pay for free K-12 school meals, childcare services, a family tax credit and eliminate sales taxes on personal care items such as shampoo.

The state House adopted it this week after an all-night session deliberating amendments to the proposal. Now, it goes back to the Senate, which passed a version previously. Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson has indicated support if the Legislature, which is controlled by his party, can send it to him before it adjourns Thursday.

“Washington is a state that has had an extremely regressive tax structure for 93 years,” House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon, a Democrat, said in an interview. “It falls very heavily on working and middle class people in our state.” He said that if the change is adopted, it will help. “We don’t need to be a tax haven,” he said.

Others, including GOP lawmakers, caution that taxes on the wealthy are not a comprehensive solution to addressing worrisome state revenues and can drive away businesses.

Colin Hathaway, a millionaire businessman in Washington, said he's concerned the proposed tax would treat the money earned by his roofing company as income, even though he's putting most of it back into the business. He was already hit by the state's previous move to hike capital gains taxes, and said an additional tax could force him to move way from the state where his high school-aged children grew up.

“There’s a strong incentive to not be doing business here,” he said.

If the measure is adopted, it's likely to be challenged in court and with a ballot measure.

With affordability a hot topic in statehouses this session, a handful of progressive states are at least considering some kind of wealth tax.

Perhaps the most ambitious tax-the-rich effort is taking place in California – a state that already taxes its millionaire class. Advocates are working on a ballot measure that would place a one-time 5% tax on the assets of those with a $1 billion net worth. The proposal, backed by a large health care union, would use the extra revenue to backfill federal funding cuts to health services for lower-income people that were signed by President Donald Trump last year.

For critics, the wealth tax effort in California is the latest example of how the push to tax the rich in the U.S. is no longer about finding solutions to raise revenue but instead now backed by those who believe excessive wealth should be reduced or even erased, said Jared Walczak, a senior fellow at the Tax Foundation.

“You see that in the language around something like the California wealth tax, where the ballot language itself talks about it being a tax on sustaining excessive accumulations of wealth,” Walczak said.

Elsewhere, Rhode Island legislators are debating a budget proposal – backed by Democratic Gov. Dan McKee – that would enact higher taxes on residents earning $1 million or more.

In Michigan, organizers are working to collect enough signatures to get a ballot initiative in front of voters in November asking them to approve replacing the state’s current flat tax. Under the proposal, Michigan would place an additional 5% tax on those who make over $500,000 individually or $1 million for joint filers. The initiative, which is backed by the state’s board of education, would direct the new revenue to help fund K-12 schools.

And New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has reupped his push for New York state to raise taxes on the rich — though he faces opposition from Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul. A similar call has been made by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, but the Illinois Statehouse so far has not moved on imposing a millionaire tax.

The recent push by left-leaning leaders in blue states contrasts with what's being done in many Republican-led states, which have been more critical of passing higher taxes on their richest residents and have moved to abolish or significantly reduce personal income taxes.

Eight states have no income tax at all, and Walczak said the gap between states seeking tax relief and those seeking higher taxes on the wealthy “is larger than it has been for decades.”

Still, questions remain about whether such cuts result in spiking other taxes or eliminating funding for services.

“I think most Americans are pretty fed up because I think they understand that there’s really two tax systems. There’s one for your average person. You’re a nurse? You’re firefighter? Every two weeks you pay taxes. And then for the super wealthy, there’s all these tax breaks and all these special loopholes,” said David Kass, executive director of the left-leaning advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness.

Massachusetts is often brought up in the debate over the effectiveness of millionaire taxes. Voters passed the Fair Share Amendment in 2022, which added a 4% surtax on income over $1 million; the threshold has risen annually for inflation. To date, the amendment has collected $6 billion for education and transportation, according to the state’s Executive Office for Administration and Finance.

“It’s good for everybody, in a time of grotesque inequality, for wealthy people to chip in a little bit more,” said Collins, Oscar Mayer's great-grandson. “Especially at a time when others are just struggling to keep up.”

Attanasio reported from Seattle and Mulvihill from Haddonfield, New Jersey.

What to know about May Day demonstrations as workers face rising energy costs due to Iran war

PARIS (AP) — Activists worldwide held May Day rallies and street protests Friday, calling for peace, higher wages and better working conditions as many workers grapple with rising energy costs and shrinking purchasing power tied to the Iran war.

May 1 is a public holiday in many countries to mark International Workers’ Day, or Labor Day, when workers’ unions traditionally rally around wages, pensions, inequality and broader political issues. Demonstrations were held from Seoul, Sydney and Jakarta to many European capitals and cities across the United States.

“Working people refuse to pay the price for Donald Trump’s war in the Middle East,” the European Trade Union Confederation, which represents 93 trade union organizations in 41 European countries, said. “Today’s rallies show working people will not stand by and see their jobs and living standards destroyed.”

In the U.S., activists opposing President Donald Trump’s policies are planning marches and boycotts.

Here’s what to know about May Day:

Rising living costs linked to the conflict in the Middle East emerged as a key theme in Friday's rallies.

In the Philippine capital, Manila, large crowds demanded higher wages and lower taxes as protesters denounced the U.S. role in the Iran war. Protesters clashed with police blocking the way near the U.S. Embassy.

In Indonesia, President Prabowo Subianto joined a May Day rally in Jakarta, greeting tens of thousands of people. Workers called for stronger government protection from rising prices and difficulties in finding raw materials for key industries.

In Pakistan, May Day is a public holiday marked by rallies, but many daily wage earners cannot afford to take time off.

“How will I bring vegetables and other necessities home if I don’t work?” said Mohammad Maskeen, a 55-year-old construction worker near Islamabad.

Rising oil prices have fueled inflation, which the government estimates at about 16%, in a country heavily reliant on financial support from the International Monetary Fund and allied nations.

On a main avenue in Casablanca, Morocco’s largest city, taxi drivers honked their horns and bus drivers parked their vehicles to protest rising fuel costs. “All my expenses have gone up, but my wages haven’t budged,” Akherraz Lhachimi of the Moroccan Labor Union said.

Turkish authorities in Istanbul detained hundreds of demonstrators for attempting to march in areas declared off-limits on security grounds, most notably central Taksim Square, the epicenter of 2013 protests. May Day rallies in Turkey are frequently marred by clashes with authorities.

In France, unions called for demonstrations in Paris and elsewhere under the slogan “bread, peace and freedom,” linking workers’ daily concerns to conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.

In Italy, the government approved nearly 1 billion euros ($1.17 billion) in job incentives this week, aiming to promote stable employment and curb labor abuses ahead of May Day. The measures extend tax breaks to encourage hiring young people and disadvantaged women, and seek to address exploitation tied to platform-based work. Opposition parties dismissed the package as “pure propaganda.”

In Portugal, proposed labor law changes by the center-right government sparked a general strike and street protests last year. There is still no deal after nine months of negotiations with unions and employers. Unions say the proposals would weaken workers’ rights, including by expanding overtime limits and reducing some benefits.

International Workers’ Day was also widely observed across much of Africa.

Several rallies were staged in South Africa, where the head of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, Zingiswa Losi, said that workers were “suffocating” under the rising costs of food, electricity, transport and healthcare in “a crisis of dignity for the working classes.”

May Day carries special meaning this year in France, after a heated debate about whether employees should be allowed to work on the country’s most protected public holiday — the only day when most employees have a mandatory paid day off.

Almost all businesses, shops and malls are closed, and only essential sectors such as hospitals, transport and hotels are exempt.

A recent parliamentary proposal to expand work on the day prompted major outcry from unions and left-leaning politicians.

“Don’t touch May Day,” unions said in a joint statement.

Faced with the controversy, the government this week introduced a bill meant to expand May Day work to people staffing bakeries and florists. It is customary in France to give lily of the valley flowers on May Day as a symbol of good luck.

Tens of thousands of people joined marches across the country, including in Paris, where brief scuffles with police broke out.

“May 1 is not just any day,” Small and Medium-sized Businesses Minister Serge Papin said. “It symbolizes social gains stemming from a century of building social rules that have led to the labor code we know in France. It is indeed a special day.”

Activists and labor unions are organizing street protests and boycotts across the United States, where May Day is not a federal holiday.

May Day Strong, a coalition of activist groups and labor unions, has called on people to protest under the banner of “workers over billionaires.”

Voicing strong opposition to Trump's policies, organizers listed thousands of May Day actions across the country and are seeking an economic blackout through “no school, no work, no shopping.”

Demands include taxing the rich and putting an end to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown,

While labor and immigrant rights are historically intertwined, the focus of May Day rallies in the U.S. shifted to immigration in 2006. That’s when roughly 1 million people, including nearly half a million in Chicago alone, took to the streets to protest federal legislation that would’ve made living in the U.S. without legal permission a felony.

May Day, or International Workers’ Day, traces back more than a century to a pivotal period in U.S. labor history.

In the 1880s, unions pushed for an eight-hour workday through strikes and demonstrations. In May 1886, a Chicago rally turned deadly when a bomb exploded and police responded with gunfire. Several labor activists — most of them immigrants — were convicted of conspiracy and other charges; four were executed.

Unions later designated May 1 to honor workers. A monument in Chicago’s Haymarket Square commemorates them with the inscription: “Dedicated to all workers of the world.”

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Associated Press journalists Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, Giada Zampano in Rome, Munir Ahmed in Islamabad, Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia, Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, Cinar Kiper in Istanbul, Turkey and Akram Oubachir in Casablanca, Morocco contributed to this report.

Some states are reviving a push to tax the rich

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Some states are reviving a push to tax the rich

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