Audits
Washington's top-earner income swings sharply, and its new tax has no reserve.
Version 5. 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
First Look
A: Passes the first look: nothing obviously wrong. Minor notes may be reported as feedback without lowering the grade.
- Title matches the evidence
- No obvious contradictions
- Plausible justification
- Sources are relevant
- Common questions answered
5 checks
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Pass Title matches the evidence
The title says top-earner income swings sharply and the new tax has no reserve. The evidence shows 44.6% and 34.0% single-year AGI drops for $1M+ filers, against a 9.6% worst general-fund drop, and the ESSB 6346 summary says no reserve, cap or threshold. The title states no specific numbers, so it does not overstate.
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Pass No obvious contradictions
The finding True matches the answer and conclusion. Figures are consistent across sections: 44.6% rounds to 45%, the 32.9% standard deviation against 4.8% gives about seven times, and the illustrative -15% and -38% match between the conclusion, evidence and key points.
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Pass Plausible justification
The conclusion ties True to the IRS swing data, the general-fund comparison, the statute's lack of a reserve, and the limits on each point. It gives a readable reason for the rating that follows from the cited evidence.
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Pass Sources are relevant
Sources are on topic: the ESSB 6346 session law, the state constitution, the fiscal note, ERFC forecasts, Pew and Rockefeller volatility work, Connecticut, California and Massachusetts fiscal offices, and FactHub datasets. The advocacy and industry sources are disclosed and relevant to the points they support.
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Pass Common questions answered
There are five common questions, each with a response that engages its claim: forecasts beaten, capital gains moved out of the base, every tax falling, the rainy-day fund covering it, and the budget hole prediction.
Coverage: Read the article payload, evidence items, objections, sources and takeaways as given. Every takeaway in the source list is marked 'not yet checked', so none was treated as established and none was verified against its source. I did not read source snapshots, quotes, datasets, charts, the web or the image. Checks rest on internal consistency of the article text and on the takeaway statements as written, which are not verified.