Bill Gates’s Dad Says the Rich ‘Aren’t Paying Enough’ in Taxes

[Joanne98]

May 20 (Bloomberg) -- Bill Gates’s father wants the Microsoft Corp. co-founder to pay more in income taxes.

Bill Gates Sr., a retired Washington state lawyer, supports a proposed ballot initiative that would require the state’s highest earners including himself and his son to pay an income tax. Washington now collects no personal income taxes.

“Poor people and middle-income people are paying too much to support the state and rich people aren’t paying enough,” Gates Sr. said in an interview yesterday in Seattle. “That’s the starting point for me.”

The proposed tax on individuals earning more than $200,000 a year and couples earning more than $400,000 would raise $1 billion a year to fund education and health care. While targeting the highest earners, the measure would ease the burden on homeowners with a 20 percent reduction in state property taxes and eliminate the business-and-occupation tax for 80 percent of enterprises in the state, backers say.

Proponents begin collecting signatures today to put proposed Initiative 1098 on the state’s November ballot, amid opposition from critics who say a new tax will discourage spending and investment.

“The last thing our state needs is more job-killing taxes in the middle of a recession,” said Luke Esser, chairman of the state Republican Party.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a4YNFBDAXnKI&pos=13