No Impact Fees By New Excise Tax Allowed - Yet

From time-to-time, there is talk in the county of the need for Impact Fees, but if the BOCC wants to look to Impact Fees as a way to generate new revenue for the county coffers, the latest action by the Democratic controlled State Legislature has just let the air out of that balloon by turning back the proponents of House Bill 2196. The bill would have allowed an additional real estate excise tax to be imposed. It has been estimated by the Washington Association of Realtors that the tax would have added at least $300 million additional taxes to new homes

Impact fees have been tried before in San Juan County, but were struck down by a unanimous decision of the State Supreme Court. Subsequently the State legislature drafted strict conditions on how, and when, they could be imposed.

While the current bill is at this moment not moving, it is still not dead. The proponents can bring it forward through an exemption from cutoff. In cases such as these, where there are strong voices on both sides, one can expect the dialog will continue on how best to address the $2.2 billion state budget shortfall, and the help that new excise taxes can provide, on the one hand, and why on the other hand such a new increase to the excise tax would be counterproductive to the state economy.

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