OLYMPIA, Wash. — The Washington State Supreme Court ruled Friday that a capital gains tax is constitutional, reversing a lower court’s ruling.
In the court’s majority opinion, Justice Debra L. Stephens wrote that the capital gains tax is appropriately characterized as an excise tax because it is levied on the sale or exchange of capital assets and not the assets or gains themselves.
“This understanding of the tax is consistent with a long line of precedent recognizing excise taxes as those levied on the exercise of rights associated with property ownership, such as the power to sell or exchange property, in contrast to property taxes levied on property itself,” Stephens wrote.
Two justices on the nine-member State Supreme Court dissented – Sheryl Gordon McCloud and Charles W. Johnson.
