内容来源：https://www.geekwire.com/2026/opinion-the-myth-of-washingtons-tax-burden-by-the-numbers/

内容总结：

华盛顿州税负真相：税率不高、未暴涨、对富人加税无损经济

针对社交媒体上关于华盛顿州“高税负扼杀经济”的传言，前创业公司创始人、现州议会候选人罗恩·戴维斯撰文指出，这些论调缺乏数据支撑。事实上，华盛顿州的税负在美国各州中处于较低水平，远未达到损害商业的程度。

数据显示，华盛顿州税收占经济比重仅在全美排名中游，且比几年前有所下降。目前该州税率不仅低于所有深蓝州，甚至低于堪萨斯、肯塔基等九个红州。令人意外的是，华盛顿曾是美国税收“最倒挂”的州——穷人税负比例远高于富人。在实施针对年资本利得超25万美元的富人税后，目前“倒退程度”退居全美第二，仅次于佛罗里达。

对富人而言，华盛顿州堪称“避税天堂”。该州最富有的1%人群仅需缴纳收入4%的州和地方税，远低于德克萨斯、爱达荷，更不及加利福尼亚的12%和纽约的14%。然而，低收入家庭却承担了13.8%的收入作为税款，高于全美11.4%的平均水平。

从国际看，美国整体税率在经合组织38个国家中排名倒数第7，仅高于哥斯达黎加、墨西哥等国。低税率并未带来更好的社会福祉——美国在预期寿命、医疗覆盖和基础设施方面表现欠佳。

针对“财政支出失控”的批评，戴维斯指出，考虑服务通胀因素后，当前州税收占经济比重（8.47%）不仅低于2019年的10.6%，甚至比2010年衰退时期的9.9%还要低，与25年前持平，且低于20世纪70至90年代水平。

关于“百万富翁税”将导致富人外逃的担忧，实证研究给出了相反结论。数据显示，富人迁移率远低于其他群体，跨州税收差异每年仅导致约250户百万富翁家庭搬迁（全美总数约1.2万）。新泽西、马萨诸塞、纽约和加州在提高富人税后，富裕人口数量反而显著增长。加州在美国百万富翁中的“市场占比”甚至出现上升。

作者最后呼吁，华盛顿州应当回归以数据为基础的政策讨论，避免被缺乏实证的恐慌情绪左右。在这个诞生了无数改变世界的企业家的地方，政治讨论同样需要遵循证据导向的标准。

中文翻译：

【编者按】销售顾问兼前初创公司创始人罗恩·戴维斯是华盛顿州议会议员候选人，曾就初创企业销售招聘实务为GeekWire撰稿。GeekWire刊发代表多元视角的客座观点文章，本文仅代表作者个人立场。】

若你在领英上关注华盛顿州税收的本地讨论，可能会以为奥林匹亚正以极端税收政策扼杀西雅图区域经济。虽有个别例外，但多数帖子重修辞而轻严谨。鉴于华盛顿州的迫切需求，我们理应做得更好。考虑到我们社区具备数据驱动思维的能力，我们完全可以做得更好。

与普遍认知相反，我们的税负相对较低，并未急剧飙升，且远未达到对商业领域造成严重损害的程度。

华盛顿州税负偏低

且看为何一位保守派经济学家近期将华盛顿州称为富人的"避税天堂，堪比开曼群岛"。首先，我们近期才勉强达到各州税收占经济比重的中间水平，且税负实际上较几年前有所下降。相较其他深蓝州，我们的税负更低，甚至低于包括堪萨斯、肯塔基、犹他和西弗吉尼亚在内的九个红州。

其次，我们的税收体系过度庇护富人，同时苛待工薪家庭。直至近期，华盛顿州仍是全美税收累退性最严重的州——这意味着穷人缴纳的税款占收入比例远超富人。得益于对年度超25万美元的资本利得征税，我们现在退居税收累退性第二严重的州，仅优于佛罗里达。

目前，华盛顿州收入前1%群体缴纳的州及地方税款仅占其收入的4%——低于得克萨斯州和爱达荷州。全美平均水平为7.2%，几乎是华盛顿州的两倍。在马萨诸塞州、加利福尼亚州和纽约州，前1%群体的税负分别占收入的9%、12%和14%。而在光谱另一端，常青州收入最低的五分之一群体则负担沉重——税款占其收入的13.8%，全美平均水平为11.4%。低收入家庭相较其他州同类群体确实被过度征税，但这并未出现在领英的讨论中。

让我们同时审视国家与全球背景。美国的税收（含州和地方税）远低于多数富裕国家——在经合组织38国中排名第32。我们缴纳25%的税款，而富裕的丹麦人、荷兰人、日本人和奥地利人，以及快速增长的西班牙人和波兰人，均缴纳35%-43%。难怪我们的预期寿命、不平等程度、医保覆盖率和基础设施如此堪忧！在经合组织中，仅哥斯达黎加、土耳其、哥伦比亚、智利和墨西哥的税率低于我们。

换言之，所谓税负沉重——尤其对富人而言，特别是华盛顿州——实属误解。

华盛顿州预算增长可持续

人们常对华盛顿州预算增长发出危言耸听的论断。诚然，若过去十年间华盛顿州预算与人口及普通通胀率同步增长，实际支出将低29%。但正如任何公共财政经济学家所言，这种信息近乎无用。

成本病现象意味着公共与私人部门的服务通胀率均高于整体通胀率。由于政府工作属服务密集型，其成本增速自然快于普通通胀。政府还需建设基础设施——因此大量购置土地，而经济增长期地价上涨更快。正因如此，维持政府服务规模不变的成本增速通常远超通胀率。因此，经济学家转而考察税收占州收入（GDP）的比例。

你或许认为近年支出增速已达不可持续水平。请再仔细想想。2019年，税收占经济比重为10.6%，如今则为8.47%。或许该回顾2010年衰退期紧缩政策的低谷？当时为9.9%。税收占经济比重实际上在萎缩。与25年前持平，且低于1970年代、1980年代和1990年代的水平。

若认为GDP数据存在失真或无法反映个人体验，同样的分析适用于个人收入。税负更低，而当年税负更高时我们的经济反而繁荣。

百万富翁税不会损害经济或引发大规模外逃

在线上讨论中，尽管充斥着对"税收外流"和"比较劣势"的焦虑，令人惊讶的是我们社区对富人增税的实际可量化经济影响却鲜有深入探讨。那么，冷冰冰的证据究竟揭示了什么？

暂不讨论"留住每位富人是否是公共政策最高目标"的问题，证据明确显示：富人群体总体远非传闻中那般对税率敏感。事实上，富人迁移率低于其他群体。

研究人员估算，若消除各州间所有税收差异，全国百万富翁迁移量每年仅减少约250户——而迁移总户数约12,000户。正如产品经理所言，像我们这样的地区具有"粘性"。

此外，研究表明即便富人真的迁移，其目的地也多为其他高税区！诚然，有人宣称因税收迁往怀俄明州，也有人购置第二居所或玩转住所游戏避税。但宏观净效应似乎微不足道。

不幸的是，当"所有认识的人"都在"考虑"搬家时，针对数百万人的研究似乎难以动摇人们的信念。

那么且看具体案例。新泽西州提高富人税，马萨诸塞州向百万富翁增税，纽约州两次提高富人税，加利福尼亚州亦然。每次商界人士都预言经济末日，谈论认识的富豪正在离开。而后这些地区的富人数量却显著增长。事实上，在增税幅度颇大的加州，其百万富翁占全美比例甚至有所上升。

仿佛"经济"是极其复杂的涌现现象，而非简单公式——繁荣程度与富人税率或评论者的主观感受呈完美负相关。

每当我们提高最低工资、劳动标准或税收时，这些事实却极少出现在"本地经济即将灭亡"的论调中，这是个严重问题。尽管关于合理税收类型及水平的讨论空间广阔，但我们必须停止这种缺乏基本实证精神的对话。

华盛顿州税负不高、未曾飙升，对富人增税不会带来经济崩溃风险。这个社群曾凭借追随证据指引创建了改变世界的企业。如今是时候要求我们的政治话语遵循相同标准了。

*爱尔兰正式列于该名单，但其税率存在严重扭曲——GDP因企业为避税将利润账目转移至此而大幅虚增。爱尔兰已通过国民总收入指标修正这一扭曲，其实际税率应在35%-40%之间。
注：本文使用的人口数据、预算历史及通胀计算器来源附后。

英文来源：

[Editor’s Note: Sales consultant and former startup founder Ron Davis is a candidate for the Washington state Legislature, who has written for GeekWire previously on startup sales hiring practices. GeekWire publishes guest opinion pieces representing a range of perspectives. The views expressed are those of the author.]
If you tune into the local conversation about Washington state taxes on LinkedIn, you might think that Olympia is on the verge of snuffing out Seattle’s regional economy with extreme taxation. There are exceptions, but most of these posts are long on rhetoric, short on rigor. Given Washington’s pressing needs, we should do better. And given our community’s capacity for data-driven thinking, we can do better.
Contrary to popular myths, our taxes are relatively low, haven’t exploded skyward, and are nowhere near the point of creating serious damage to the commercial sphere.
Washington taxes are low
Let’s consider why a conservative economist recently called Washington a “tax haven, like the Cayman Islands,” when it comes to the rich. First, we only recently even reached the halfway point among states when it comes to taxes as a share of its economy, and our taxes are actually down from a few years ago. We have lower taxes than every other deep blue state, and nine red states too, including Kansas, Kentucky, Utah and West Virginia.
Second, our taxes disproportionately coddle the rich, while simultaneously stiffing working families. Until recently, Washington was the most regressively taxed state in the union, which meant that the poor pay a much bigger share of their income than the rich. Thanks to the tax on capital gains windfalls over $250,000 in a year, we are now only the second most regressively taxed — just above Florida.
Currently, the top 1% of Washington earners pay 4% of their income in state and local taxes — less than either Texas or Idaho. The national average is 7.2%, nearly twice as much as Washington. In Massachusetts, California and New York, the top 1% pay 9%, 12% and 14% of their income. On the other end of the spectrum, the bottom fifth of earners in the Evergreen State pay through the nose — 13.8% of their income. The national average is 11.4%. Low income families ARE overtaxed relative to their peers in other states, but this does not figure into the discussions on LinkedIn.
Let’s remember the national and global context as well. United States taxes, including state and local, are far lower than most rich countries — 32nd out of 38 in the OECD. We pay 25%, while the rich Danes, Dutch, Japanese and Austrians, or the fast-growing Spanish and Poles, all pay 35%-43%. No wonder our life expectancy, inequality, healthcare coverage and infrastructure are so poor! The only countries* with taxes lower than ours in the OECD are Costa Rica, Turkey, Colombia, Chile and Mexico.
In other words, the notion of a tax burden — especially for the rich, especially in Washington state — is a myth.
Washington’s budget growth is sustainable
One often hears hyperventilating claims about the growth in Washington’s budget. It is true that if Washington’s budget had grown at exactly the rate as the population and general inflation combined over the last decade, it would be 29% lower. But as any public finance economist can tell you, that information is close to useless.
Cost disease means that services inflation in both the public and private sectors is higher than overall inflation. Since government work is service-intensive, government costs go up faster than general inflation. Governments build stuff, too — so they buy lots of land and land also gets expensive faster in growing economies. This is why the cost of keeping government services flat usually increases much faster than inflation. Ergo, economists instead look at how much of our state income (GDP) taxes take up.
You might think we’ve run up spending in the last few years at an unsustainable rate. Think again. In 2019, taxes were 10.6% of our economy. Today they are 8.47%. Perhaps we should look back to the depths of recession-era austerity, in 2010? It was 9.9%. Taxes as a share of our economy have shrunk. They are flat from 25 years ago, and down from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
And if you think GDP numbers are somehow distorted or are not representative of individual experiences, the same analysis holds true of personal income. Taxes are lower, and our economy boomed when our taxes were higher.
The millionaire tax won’t hurt the economy or prompt a mass exodus
In conversations online, for all the talk about tax flight and comparative disadvantage vibes, there is surprisingly little discussion in our community about the real, measured, economic impact of higher taxes on the wealthy. So what does the cold, hard, evidence say?
Well, setting aside the question of whether retaining every last wealthy person is the highest goal of public policy, the evidence is pretty darn clear that the wealthy on balance are nowhere near as price-sensitive as we are told. In fact, millionaires move less than everyone else.
Researchers estimate that eliminating all tax differences between the states would reduce national millionaire migrations by only about 250 families per year — out of roughly 12,000 total. Regions like ours are “sticky,” as the product people say.
Moreover, studies suggest that when the wealthy do move, they mostly move to other high-tax jurisdictions! Certainly some people cite taxes when they move to Wyoming and some people buy extra homes and play domiciling games to avoid taxes. But the macro, net effect appears to be pretty negligible.
Unfortunately, studies of millions of people seem to have little impact on people’s beliefs when “everyone they know” is “thinking” about moving.
So let’s put this in terms of some specific stories. New Jersey raised taxes on the rich and Massachusetts raised taxes on millionaires. New York raised taxes on the rich twice, and so did California. In every one of those cases, businesspeople predicted an economic apocalypse, and talked about how the people they knew were leaving. Then the number of rich people in all those places increased markedly. In fact, in California — where taxes went up a lot — their “market share” of U.S. millionaires even increased.
It’s almost as if “the economy” is an immensely complex emergent phenomena, instead of a simple equation where prosperity is perfectly inversely correlated with rich people’s taxes or commentator’s vibes about them.
It’s a serious problem that these kinds of facts so rarely figure into pronouncements about the imminent demise of our local economy every time we do something like raise the minimum wage, labor standards, or taxes. While there is plenty of room for discussion about the right kind and level of taxation, it is time we stopped having a discussion that is just devoid of basic empiricism.
Washington taxes aren’t high, haven’t spiked, and raising them on the wealthy doesn’t risk economic ruin. This community built world-changing companies by following evidence wherever it leads. It’s time we demand the same standard from our political discourse.

• Ireland is officially on this list, but its tax rate is seriously distorted, because GDP is massively inflated by companies shifting profits there on paper for tax purposes. Ireland has addressed this distortion with a gross national income number and this puts their true tax rate between 35% and 40%.
  Note: I used these population numbers, budget history and this inflation calculator.