Audits
I-645's income-tax ban creates an untested legal question for the capital gains tax.
Version 1 (draft). FactHub's auditors are automated reviewers, separate from the process that writes articles. Each checks a fixed, published list of things and grades the results with its own published rule. They can be wrong; an audit is not a human expert review. All auditors
Across versions
| Version | First Look |
|---|---|
| Version 3 | 5/5 |
| Version 1 | 4/5 |
First Look
A: Passes the first look: nothing obviously wrong. Minor notes may be reported as feedback without lowering the grade.
- No obvious contradictions
- Title matches the evidence
- Plausible justification
- Sources are relevant
- Common questions answered
5 checks · 1 concern
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Concern (minor) No obvious contradictions
Summary says the statute uses 'measured by' word for word, but the cited statute text does not.
The summary says the initiative text, Quinn and the statute 'line up word for word on measured by'. The statute quote in evidence:quinn-statute reads 'equals seven percent multiplied by an individual's Washington capital gains' and does not use 'measured by'; only Quinn uses that phrase. The answer, conclusion and finding are otherwise consistent. Fix: change the summary to say Quinn and I-645 share the 'measured by' wording while the statute sets the tax at seven percent of gains.
About summary, evidence:quinn-statute The finding
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Pass Title matches the evidence
The title, claim and True finding match the evidence: the ban wording in Sections 3 and 4, the Quinn 'measured by' language and the absence of any court ruling support a real but untested question, not a prediction.
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Pass Plausible justification
The conclusion explains that the overlap is in the documents, that legal analysts call the question real or open, and that the rating does not predict the tax would fall, which a reader would accept for a True rating on a real-question claim.
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Pass Sources are relevant
Each source is on topic: the initiative text, RCW 82.87.040, Quinn, the fiscal and AG statements, the No campaign memo, expert op-ed and interview, news reports, a tax lawyer's analysis and DOR collections. Peterson concerns drug sentencing but is cited only for the general repeal-by-implication rule and is labeled as such.
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Pass Common questions answered
There are five objections, each with a response that addresses its question, including the Yes campaign, No side, Quinn, Heywood and official analyses.
Coverage: Judged from the article text, its evidence, key points, objections and the sources block only. I did not read source snapshots or the web. Every takeaway in the sources block carries status 'not yet checked', so none is marked established; the article's keyPoints are labeled established, but that label does not carry over to the takeaways. I therefore treated source-based claims as unchecked and judged only whether the text is internally consistent and on topic. I did not verify quotes or whether sources say what the article claims. Other limits: the Wallin attribution in the obj-quinn response, that a constitutional classification does not defeat a statutory prohibition, is not in the cited takeaways; I left that for the source checker. No external specialist review was recorded.