Progressive groups, unions announce wealth tax initiative aimed at 2028 Oregon ballot

Aiming to make up for lost revenue from federal benefit cuts, a coalition of powerful Oregon advocacy groups announced Thursday that they will launch a signature-gathering campaign for the November 2028 election to approve a wealth tax on some of the state’s richest households while cutting taxes for low-income residents. 

The left-leaning Fight For Our Future coalition filed the “Financial Assets Tax on Multimillionaires” ballot initiative. Influential groups such as the American Federation of Teachers Oregon, Oregon Education Association, Service Employees International Union Oregon State Council and Oregon’s American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, all organizations that hold significant political sway in Salem, make up the coalition.

The groups secured a partial victory in this year’s legislative session when Oregon Democrats moved to partially disconnect Oregon from tax cuts passed in the 2025 federal GOP tax and spending law, undoing exemptions for auto loans and bonus depreciation benefits. But they were unable to convince lawmakers to entirely stop the state from replicating the federal tax code on state income taxes, a practice that Oregon has automatically employed for decades.

Now, advocates want to ask Oregonians to pass the measure to shore up revenue for the state as it stares down hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to social services due to the law. Their push follows similar action in other states to raise taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations, such as a proposed “billionaires tax.” Voters will weigh in on that proposal in California in November and an income tax initiative in Colorado for the top 3% of earners in the state. 

“We pay taxes out of every paycheck and expect those dollars to come back to our communities in the form of good schools, affordable health care, safe roads and the services we all rely on,” Enrique Farrera, president of the Oregon Education Association, said in a statement. “But while working families are being asked to do more with less, the richest Oregonians have more wealth than ever. This initiative is about evening the playing field, making life more affordable for working families and making sure everyone has the care and support they need to thrive.”

The proposed Oregon initiative would target individual taxpayers and focus on financial assets rather than taxing businesses or property such as farms or households, but it could inspire dueling ballot measures and fierce opposition from fiscal conservatives and business supporters as similar measures have done in other states. 

Oregon voters also rejected a 2024 ballot measure asking them to impose a 3% tax on businesses for sales more than $25 million a year. 

The ballot measure would tax Oregonians with a net worth of $30 million or more, creating a 1-1.2% financial assets tax on their stocks, bonds and cryptocurrency, raising what advocates estimate would be a net $1.5 billion per two-year budget cycle for the state. The state would calculate this through combining an individual’s financial assets such as funds in a bank account, bonds, stocks, private equity or hedge fund and cryptocurrency.

The tax rate would climb from 1% within that range depending on whether someone has a net worth more than $50 million or $100 million. The coalition estimates this tax would apply to 4,500 Oregon households.

Oregon’s top income tax rate of 9.9% kicks in at $125,000 for single earners and $250,000 for married couples filing joint returns. But advocates for taxing wealth, not just income, have pointed to high-profile examples of billionaires including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Tesla founder Elon Musk avoiding paying income taxes because their wealth comes not from a paycheck but from the value of assets including stock and property.   

The proposed measure also would offer benefits for low-income Oregonians, with a 30% refundable state income tax credit for single individuals who make less than $45,000 and joint filers who make less than $90,000. Single filers who make up to $50,000 and joint filers who make up to $100,000 would also qualify for smaller versions of that credit. That would offer benefits to more than 1.3 million taxpayers in Oregon, or 58% of all tax filers in the state, based on an analysis of 2023 state tax data by Fight for Our Future. In turn, these tax cuts would cost the state $1 billion over a two-year budget cycle by reducing the burden on low-income households.

Candice Williams, executive director of For All Families Oregon Action, told the Capital Chronicle that the coalition launched the ballot initiative to put pressure on lawmakers ahead of the 2027 long legislative session. Advocates plan to stress that the tax credit in the measure would benefit more than 1 million Oregonians, in comparison to the fewer than 5,000 households they estimate would pay higher taxes.

“We’ve gone to the Legislature multiple times to ask them to fix the issues that exist in child care, in healthcare and in our schools, and to really help working families,” she said. “This is not the moment to wait for them to do their jobs. It’s the moment to take it to the people and allow the people to choose what’s right for them.”

Advocates for the ballot measure will need to secure at least 1,000 signatures for sponsorship of their petition. Then, they will need to gather signatures equal to 6% of the total votes cast in the upcoming November 2026 governor’s race for the Secretary of State’s Office to verify and place the initiative on the November 2028 ballot. That threshold is likely to be well over 100,000 signatures given past elections.

Source: Washington State Standard

This article was originally published by Washington State Standard.