Washington's capital gains tax is the state's closest existing example of a tax on high earners' investment income. DOR's tax-year totals are the official collection figures, and its decile table is the only official breakdown of how concentrated the payments are. The 2021 fiscal note is the estimate lawmakers voted on.
Geography
Washington
Unit of observation
Tax year (collections); tax year or fiscal year (concentration)
Update cadence
When DOR publishes new collection totals
Curator
FactHub Research Team
Supporting files
Source snapshots, manifests, quality reports, documentation,
and other materials used to produce or review this release.
The dataset's limitations, sources, tables, events, saved analyses and forecasts as JSON, as stored in this version.
Saved analyses
Capital gains tax collections compared with the 2021 fiscal note
Question: How did collections compare with the Department of Revenue's pre-enactment estimate of capital gains tax receipts?
Result: Against the fiscal note's gross capital gains receipts, tax year 2022 collections ($782.0M) were 1.48 times the FY2023 estimate ($527M), and tax years 2023-2024 combined ($978.5M) were 0.84 times the 2023-25 estimate ($1,162M). Tax year 2025 alone ($1.5B) already exceeds the whole 2025-27 estimate ($1,258M). Against the bill's net total (which subtracts B&O credits) the ratios would be 1.77 and 1.00.
Operation: actualMillion / grossCgEstimateMillion, where gross = Education Legacy Trust + Common School Construction receipts in fiscal note package 63363, and actual = DOR net payments for the tax years whose April payments fall in that period. The ratio to the bill's net total (after B&O credits) is shown for comparison.
Scope: Fiscal note periods FY2023 and 2023-25 (tax years 2022-2024); 2025-27 shown without a ratio
Fiscal-year and tax-year totals are not identical: some payments and refunds fall in other fiscal years.
Tax year 2025 includes a 2.9% surcharge enacted after the 2021 estimate (estimated separately at about $151M for FY2026).
Forecast vs. actual
Each forecast beside the value later observed by a saved
analysis. FactHub computes the error as the actual value minus
the forecast; for a range, it is zero inside the range and
otherwise measured from the nearest bound.
Forecast
Forecast value
Actual
Error
Percent error
Source
Gross capital gains tax receipts, FY2023 (tax year 2022 payments), FY2023 (tax year 2022)
Washington Department of Revenue (fiscal note for SSB 5096),
OFM Fiscal Note Package 63363, SSB 5096 (2021), capital gains tax, as passed Gross = $500M Education Legacy Trust + $27M school construction. The bill's net total ($442M) subtracts B&O tax credits, which do not reduce capital gains payments. The note estimates fiscal-year cash; DOR reports tax-year net payments.
Gross capital gains tax receipts, 2023-25 biennium (tax years 2023 and 2024), 2023-25 biennium (tax years 2023-2024)
Washington Department of Revenue (fiscal note for SSB 5096),
Retrieved October 21, 2026. Public record of a Washington state agency. Figures restated with attribution; the page is linked, not hosted.
Reliability:
Government.
The Department of Revenue administers and collects the tax and publishes these totals from its own payment records. Totals change as refunds and late payments post, so each figure is tied to its as-of date.
Retrieved October 21, 2026. Public record of a Washington state agency. Figures restated with attribution; the PDF is linked, not hosted.
Reliability:
Government.
DOR's research office compiled the table from payment records. Its tax-year totals ($780.4M for 2022, $416.7M for 2023) are earlier counts than DOR's June 2026 figures and differ because of later refunds and payments.
Retrieved October 21, 2026. Public record of a Washington state agency. Figures restated with attribution; the PDF is linked, not hosted.
Reliability:
Government.
Official fiscal note prepared by DOR for the Legislature before the vote. It grows 2018 capital gains with CBO realization forecasts and assumes no behavioral response other than charitable giving.
Retrieved October 21, 2026. Public record of a Washington state agency. Figures restated with attribution; the PDF is linked, not hosted.
Reliability:
Government.
Official fiscal note prepared by DOR before the 2025 vote; the surcharge applied retroactively to January 1, 2025.
Limitations and reproducibility
Reproducible: Every value is typed from a DOR or OFM document named in the field's sourceIds. The build script (build_datasets.js, Node.js) holds the inputs and recomputes every derived value and saved analysis.
DOR revises its totals as refunds and late payments post, so each figure is tied to an as-of date; the decile table (January 2025) and the collection totals (June 2026) are different snapshots.
Tax year 2025 is an initial count and includes the 2.9% surcharge on gains over $1 million that took effect that year.
DOR counts payments, not individual taxpayers.
Fiscal-note estimates are by fiscal year or biennium and collections by tax year, so comparisons are approximate. Comparisons use the note's gross capital gains receipts, not its net bill total, which also subtracts B&O tax credits.
