Illustrative households under ESSB 6346 as enacted

What this dataset measures

Built to show, from official records, which kinds of income and households ESSB 6346 reaches beyond people who earn $1 million a year in wages: married couples sharing one deduction, retirees and heirs with one-time distributions, households whose capital gains push wages over the line, and future households as the threshold loses value. The amendment votes record which of these the Legislature considered and rejected.

Geography

Washington, United States

Unit of observation

Varies by table: federal individual income tax returns by AGI class and year; floor amendments; illustrative households; tax years

Update cadence

Irregular; update when IRS releases tax year 2023 state data or the law changes

Curator

FactHub Research Team

Curated data tables

Illustrative households under ESSB 6346 as enacted

Ten households computed from the statute: base = federal AGI less long-term gains, plus Washington capital gains and the capital gains deduction for those owing capital gains tax; tax = 9.9% of base above $1,000,000 less a credit for capital gains tax paid.

Unit of observation: Illustrative household and tax year

household_examples.csv text/csv · 1.9 KB (1,967 bytes)

All 10 rows 14 columns Download the file

All 10 rows

id	household	wages US dollars	retirementIncome US dollars	otherOrdinaryIncome US dollars	longTermGainTaxable US dollars	exemptGain US dollars	note	waCapitalGainsTax US dollars	washingtonBaseIncome US dollars	incomeTaxBeforeCredit US dollars	capitalGainsCredit US dollars	millionairesTaxOwed US dollars	totalWashingtonTax US dollars
couple-550k-each	Married couple, each spouse earns $550,000 in wages	1100000	0	0	0	0	Spouses share one $1,000,000 deduction (Sec. 314).	0	1100000	9900	0	9900	9900
singles-550k-each	The same two earners if unmarried (per person)	550000	0	0	0	0	Each single filer has a $1,000,000 deduction.	0	550000	0	0	0	0
rsu-vest	Household with $250,000 salary and a one-time $900,000 RSU vest	1150000	0	0	0	0	Vested RSUs are wages in federal AGI.	0	1150000	14850	0	14850	14850
retiree-lump-sum	Retired couple with $150,000 of pension and taxable Social Security who withdraw $1,000,000 from a 401(k) in one year	0	1150000	0	0	0	Retirement distributions are ordinary AGI; no averaging.	0	1150000	14850	0	14850	14850
retiree-no-lump-sum	The same retired couple without the withdrawal	0	150000	0	0	0	—	0	150000	0	0	0	0
inherited-ira-lump	Heir with $200,000 other income who takes a $4,000,000 inherited IRA in one year	200000	4000000	0	0	0	SECURE Act 10-year rule allows spreading.	0	4200000	316800	0	316800	316800
inherited-ira-spread	The same heir taking $400,000 a year for 10 years (one year shown)	200000	400000	0	0	0	—	0	600000	0	0	0	0
wages-plus-stock-gain	Household with $800,000 wages that sells stock for a $600,000 long-term gain	800000	0	0	600000	0	Gains taxed by the capital gains tax count toward the $1,000,000 line; that tax is credited.	22540	1400000	39600	22540	17060	39600
wages-only-800k	The same household without the stock sale	800000	0	0	0	0	—	0	800000	0	0	0	0
home-sale	Household with $400,000 wages that sells its home for a $1,500,000 gain	400000	0	0	0	1500000	First $500,000 excluded federally (IRC 121); the rest is real estate gain, exempt from the capital gains tax (RCW 82.87.050) and removed by Sec. 302.	0	400000	0	0	0	0

14 field definitions

Field	Type	Meaning	Units	Value type
id	string	Example id	—	derived
household	string	Description of the household	—	derived
wages	number	Wages including vested RSUs	US dollars	estimated
retirementIncome	number	Pensions, taxable Social Security and retirement-account distributions	US dollars	estimated
otherOrdinaryIncome	number	Other ordinary income	US dollars	estimated
longTermGainTaxable	number	Long-term capital gain subject to the Washington capital gains tax	US dollars	estimated
exemptGain	number	Gain exempt from the capital gains tax (real estate)	US dollars	estimated
note	string	Rule that drives the result	—	derived
waCapitalGainsTax	number	Washington capital gains tax	US dollars	derived
washingtonBaseIncome	number	Washington base income under Secs. 301-302	US dollars	derived
incomeTaxBeforeCredit	number	9.9% of base income above $1,000,000	US dollars	derived
capitalGainsCredit	number	Nonrefundable credit for capital gains tax (Sec. 205)	US dollars	derived
millionairesTaxOwed	number	ESSB 6346 tax after the credit	US dollars	derived
totalWashingtonTax	number	Capital gains tax plus ESSB 6346 tax	US dollars	derived

Supporting files

Source snapshots, manifests, quality reports, documentation, and other materials used to produce or review this release.

• build_reach.js Transformation manifest · text/javascript · 13.7 KB (14,012 bytes)

  Node.js script that builds every table and result from the IRS files, the roll-call XML and the threshold projection.

Derived from

This dataset uses data from these FactHub dataset versions.

• Washington millionaires tax: who files over $1 million, how the threshold holds up, and how volatile the base is Version 2

Sources

1. Internal Revenue Service, Statistics of Income Primary data: Washington returns by AGI class (files 19in55cmcsv.csv to 22in55cmcsv.csv, e.g. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/22in55cmcsv.csv)

   Retrieved October 21, 2026. Public domain (U.S. government work). Unrestricted

   Reliability: Government. Compiled by the IRS from filed individual income tax returns; state tables are published annually with a lag of about three years. Counts are rounded and amounts are in thousands of dollars.

2. Washington State Legislature web services Primary data: recorded floor votes on ESSB 6346 and its amendments

   Retrieved October 21, 2026. Public record of the Washington State Legislature. Public record

   Reliability: Government. The Legislature's official roll-call record, served as XML. Each record gives the motion (floor amendment number and sponsor), date and yea/nay counts.

3. Washington State Legislature Primary record: amendment list, floor numbers, outcomes, and each amendment's official EFFECT statement (texts at lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2025-26/Htm/Amendments/)

   Retrieved October 21, 2026. Public record of the Washington State Legislature. Public record

   Reliability: Government. Official bill page. EFFECT statements are written by nonpartisan legislative staff for each amendment.

4. Washington State Legislature Primary law used for the household calculations (Secs. 201, 205, 301, 302, 314, 316)

   Retrieved October 21, 2026. Public record of the Washington State Legislature. Public record

   Reliability: Government. Enacted session law, chapter 238, Laws of 2026. The Department of Revenue had issued no rules interpreting it as of October 21, 2026.

5. Washington State Legislature Capital gains tax rates, exemptions and deductions used in the household calculations (RCW 82.87.040, .050, .060)

   Retrieved October 21, 2026. Public record of the Washington State Legislature. Public record

   Reliability: Government. Codified statute. RCW 82.87.050 exempts all real estate and retirement-account assets from the capital gains tax.

6. Washington State Standard (via The Inlander) The Department of Revenue's estimate of 25,000 paying households, the starting point of the projection

   Retrieved October 15, 2026. News report; facts only used. Not redistributed; linked

   Reliability: News report. Nonprofit news outlet reporting the Department of Revenue's July 2026 revision of its payer estimate.

Limitations and reproducibility

Reproducible: build_reach.js regenerates every table from the public IRS SOI state files (19-22in55cmcsv.csv), the Washington Legislature's roll-call web service for ESSB 6346, and the threshold projection in FactHub dataset wa-millionaires-tax-reach (versions 1 and 2 hold the same projection). The household examples are deterministic arithmetic from the statute text.

• IRS figures count federal returns, not households, and federal AGI includes long-term capital gains that ESSB 6346 mostly removes from its base, so returns over $1 million of AGI are not the same group as payers of the tax.
• Tax year 2022 is the latest IRS state release used; the tax starts in tax year 2028.
• Return counts for an income type include any return reporting that item, however small; the IRS rounds state counts to the nearest 10.
• The household examples are illustrations of the statute as written, not estimates of how many such households exist. They hold the capital gains standard deduction at its 2025 value of $278,000 and assume no other deductions or credits.
• The payer projection holds real incomes and population constant and uses a Pareto approximation of the income distribution near $1 million, so it isolates the effect of the indexing rule; it is not a forecast. Real income growth would add payers under either indexing rule.
• No public data separates two-earner couples by each spouse's income, so the dataset cannot count couples who pay only because they share one deduction.