WELCOME

Welcome to the online headquarters of Stop the Home Tax!

View the King 5 TV News story "Realtors group warning homeowners of real estate tax" on our latest public awareness campaign to Stop Home Taxes.

View one of the mailings that struck a nerve and a caused a huge response from thousands of Washington voters!

The National Association of REALTORS® and the Washington REALTORS® are working to ensure that your investment in your home remains strong. That's why we have joined together in this grassroots effort to stop lawmakers from increasing real estate taxes, taxes on business and taxes on services that will only further burden our struggling economy

Politicians need revenue to fill a more than $9 billion deficit in the state budget and they will be looking at taxes on your home.

Because the Legislature will be looking to fill this budget hole, we want to ensure it is not through more taxes - sales tax on services, business taxes or a tax on homes.

As the legislative session won’t begin until January 2009, the Legislature has not formally begun its work to determine how they will address the budget shortfall. However, the governor’s biennial and supplemental budget proposals are now under development and legislators and staff in the House and Senate also have begun to contemplate how to bridge the budget deficit. History has demonstrated that the Legislature is very likely to consider tax increases in order to fill the budget gap.

Furthermore, several state and county mandated task forces and working groups are considering real estate taxes to fund climate change, Puget Sound cleanup, affordable housing and transfer of development rights programs.

Our issue advocacy campaign is intended to remind public policy makers that now is not the time to add to citizens’ tax burden and that lawmakers should not consider additional taxes that will hurt our economy. It is a critical time in our economy and in the housing market. Without a rebounding home market, there will be no economic recovery. We want the state Legislature to be aware of the public opposition to raising taxes.

Our hope is to stop any consideration of potential tax increases before the Legislature starts in January. So, in order to ensure that tax increases are not considered, we need to know that legislators will oppose potential tax increases by asking them whether they will commit to opposing any real estate tax increase, if it were to come up for a vote. With a majority of legislators committing to vote NO, we will be able to stop potential tax increases from seeing action during the legislative session.