Seattle mayor laughs off millionaires leaving Washington state over progressive taxes, waves ‘bye’

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson laughed and seemed to encourage the notion that millionaires could leave the state of Washington while discussing her support for a progressive tax during an interview earlier this month.

“I think the claims that millionaires are going to leave our state are, like, super overblown. And if — the ones that leave, like, bye,” she said, which prompted cheers and laughter from the audience at the Seattle University event, Seattle University Conversations, which took place on April 14.

Wilson was asked if she believed progressive taxes were an “easy” and “promising” solution to the tax climate in the area. She said she never thought they were easy, but said she was excited about the millionaire tax that passed in the state.

“In general, we still have the very regressive tax system, and my office is doing a lot of work to look at what our options are in terms of progressive taxation,” she said. “We do have more flexibility at the city, at the county, in terms of our taxing authority. And at the same time, I believe what I said before, which is that, it’s not good for Seattle’s business environment, for example, for the cost of doing business in downtown Seattle to be wildly out of step with, for instance, neighboring Bellevue,” she said.

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Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson looks on after the ceremonial first pitch before the game between the Seattle Mariners and the New York Yankees at T-Mobile Park in Seattle, Wash., on March 30, 2026. (Steph Chambers/Getty Images)

Wilson said that she was looking at progressive tax options that don’t increase the cost of employing people in Seattle.

“We have a large structural budget deficit at the city that we’re going to have to figure out how to deal with in this upcoming budget cycle,” she added. “And my budget office, budget staff are hard at work trying to figure out both how we can use our revenue as effectively and efficiently as possible. And I think similar refrain to the executive, right, if there are programs that aren’t fulfilling their promise that aren’t working, like we’re not going to be afraid to end them, right?”

“And so I think that being a progressive doesn’t necessarily mean that we keep layering on spending, and we never stop doing things, right?” Wilson continued. “So I think it’s — that’s really important. And at the same time, we probably aren’t going to need new revenue.”

The Seattle mayor was elected in November 2025 and has been compared to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, as they’re both democratic socialists.

Wilson defeated Seattle’s incumbent Mayor Bruce Harrell in November. Like Mamdani, she has openly campaigned on progressive ideas such as government-run grocery stores, despite their “record of failure,” The Washington Post editorial board wrote at the time.

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Starbucks Corp. headquarters in Seattle, Washington, on Sept. 26, 2025. (David Ryder/Bloomberg)

Fox 13 Seattle reported earlier this month that the Emerald City “could lose up to $750 million in tax revenue in the coming years as Starbucks expands in Tennessee instead of Washington.”

In a press release Tuesday, Starbucks announced it will invest $100 million and bring 2,000 new jobs to Nashville. 

Wilson, after winning the mayoral election in 2025, joined a Starbucks protest picket line, and said, “That is why I am proud to join them on their picket line and proud to say loud and clear, I am not buying Starbucks and you should not either,” according to KUOW.

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According to the Tax Foundation, Seattle has the highest combined state and local sales tax rate, sitting at 10.35%. 

Seattle surpassed the city of Tacoma, Washington, which had a 10.3 percent tax rate, when King County, where Seattle is located, adopted a 0.1% additional sales tax to generate additional revenue for nonprofits providing cultural programming, according to the Tax Foundation.

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Fox News’ Rachel del Guidice and Nikolas Lanum contributed to this report.