Do you own your own income? Is income even property? Or does income exist in some unattributed, unowned amorphous state before it transforms into money in your bank account? To the federal Internal Revenue Service, “income” is used exclusively as a noun: it’s the thing you receive. (Section 61 and throughout the IRS guidance.) But in Washington State, is it different?
A question from 1933 is back.
While the Washington State Supreme Court has already ruled on and affirmed in subsequent cases over nearly a century that income is property, the court is very likely to take up this question again and rule on it anew. And what it decides will have ramifications for our state, and in time, and for an income tax which may eventually impact far more Washingtonians than just millionaires.
Voters have a new tool to see how candidates might rule on this consequential question. And it may be the first of its kind for an election, using AI to try to read the tea-leaves on how judges might rule.
The Culliton Decision
The 1933 Washington Supreme Court ruling, Culliton v. Chase, says income is property under the State Constitution’s Article VII. This has been the constitutional basis on which Washington has had no graduated income tax, as interpreted by Culliton.
In 1932, Washington voters approved Initiative 69, enacting a graduated state income tax with rates from 1% to 7%, to fund Depression-era public services. A Seattle insurance agent named William Culliton sued state tax commissioner Samuel Chase to block it, and in September 1933 the Washington Supreme Court ruled in Culliton’s favor, 5-4, that income is property under Article VII’s uniformity clause, which made any graduated tax rate unconstitutional. Article VII says, “The word ‘property’ as used herein shall mean and include everything, whether tangible or intangible, subject to ownership.” It also says, “All taxes shall be uniform upon the same class of property.”
Since Culliton and all its subsequent affirmations consider income property, passing an income tax that charges different rates would be a clear violation of the state’s Constitution.
Voters have rejected 10 income tax proposals since 1934, and lawmakers passed Initiative 2111 in 2024 banning the practice. The State Constitution itself bars an income tax, as long as the State continues to treat income as property.
Property: To be, or not to be?
Washington enters 2026 with a $2.3 billion gap on a $79 billion two-year budget, the second shortfall in twelve months and the second in a row that lawmakers must close inside a 60-day session bound by a constitutional four-year balance requirement.
The arithmetic is straightforward: nonpartisan legislative staff put the four-year deficit at roughly $4.3 billion, with about a third of that tied to revenue forecasts that fall $1.7 billion short through mid-2029 as housing, employment, and tariff effects softened collections, and the remainder tied to maintenance costs that rise roughly $12.6 billion over four years on inflation, caseload growth, and workforce expenses.
Democrats attribute the gap largely to federal actions on Medicaid, ACA subsidies, and tariffs; Republicans (and even ex-Governor Christine Gregoire) attribute it to state spending growth outpacing income growth.
Opponents of the new income tax want Culliton to stand. Proponents of a statewide income tax want Culliton overturned.
On one side, Senator Jamie Pedersen (D) of Seattle, lead sponsor of the new income tax, feels income is not property, and that the Culliton case was wrongly decided.
Opponents counter not only that it’s been reaffirmed multiple times, but wryly note that if income isn’t property, and carries no ownership, they’d like to intercept Pedersen’s own income.
Ultimately, their opinions will not matter, nor will yours, nor mine. The question will be up to nine people, the justices seated on the Washington State Supreme Court. But voters do have a say, because in the next few months, we will decide who five of those nine justices will be.
Thus, the Washington State income tax itself, and all future versions of it, is on the ballot this August and November, five different times.
Earlier this year, the legislature passed, and the Governor signed, what it calls a “millionaires’ tax,” but which can easily be extended, by simple majority vote in Olympia, to any income threshold, at any rate. If the law stands, it would open the door to a wide-scale income tax for the first time in Washington State history. The State, for its part, is already beginning plans to hire 300 Department of Revenue employees, and projects to spend more than a quarter of a billion dollars annually administering it.
The “millionaire tax” law is very likely headed to the Supreme Court.
Most voters skip judicial races, but this election, we will crucially determine whether Washington State’s income tax stands or falls. So how can voters get more information on which way a candidate might rule?
New AI Tool Reads the Tea Leaves
Washington tech professional Viet Q. Nguyen has built an intriguing free online tool, Culliton2026.org, that lets you read the tea leaves.
An AI agent has ingested each of the sixteen candidates’ public records and rulings, and assigned one of three labels on the Culliton question: Are they likely to Keep the Culliton decision, Overturn it, or is there Not enough to guess?
Keeping the Culliton decision very likely means the income tax is thereby ruled unconstitutional. Overturning the Culliton decision very likely means the brand new income tax is the law of the land.
The site, ChooseJudgesWisely.com, also includes a balance-of-power chart that forecasts how the court math might move under different scenarios.
I reached out to Viet to discuss the site. The balance chart shows six of nine current justices already leaning toward upholding an income tax. But Viet considers it a call to action for opponents of the tax to get engaged, adding, “That’s how close we are to losing a cherished pillar of Washington State residence.”
He says “This site is aimed at the voter who cares about this one issue and wants to base their vote specifically on that.”
Who is Viet Nguyen?
Q: “Can you describe your day job and relevant background?”
I am the former President of 5G Americas, an international wireless trade association promoting cellular standards. We just wound down our operations, as the industry moves to 6G. In the tech/telecom side, I’ve worked in PR/communications at Microsoft’s worldwide commercial business – enterprise division and at T-Mobile corporate communications. In a former life, I’d worked in local politics for both Democrats and Republicans, as well as in government as a legislative staffer for King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn.
Q: “Why this question, why this election, why now?”
The state income tax is the most consequential issue for the State of Washington in a generation. For 93 years, Washingtonians have not had a state income tax. It’s part of our DNA. It’s as much intertwined with our identity as the rain and the mountains. This uniqueness is what attracts people to Washington State and is the reason why our corner of the country can bring in the best and brightest around the world.
Washingtonians don’t want to be just like any other state.
Q: How did you decide to narrow a Supreme Court voter guide down to a single issue?
It’s the issue I care most about. And I believe many other voters think the same way. It’s extremely hard to get good information about judicial candidates. They’re usually on the bottom of the ballot and have very little public presence. This is by design, as judges stay at arm’s length from politics.
In my previous life at a political consulting firm, we ran judicial candidates. It was an area where one party had lopsided advantages. And now, with decades of those advantages having played out, we stand at the precipice of trashing the only element in the Washington State Constitution that maintains a fundamental quality of life for our citizens – its ban on state income taxes.
Q: Let’s talk about funding, affiliations and independence. Anything readers should know about who paid for what?
This is a completely independent work. I paid for it myself. I have a terrible AI token addiction and might need to see a therapist if my AI spend continues at this rate.
Methodology
Q: What sources does the AI ingest for each candidate? Opinions, campaign sites, bar questionnaires, news interviews, oral arguments, something else?
I asked the AI to use a variety of different publicly-available sources. I asked it to make sure the sources were both accessible and validated, so that meant a reasonably high reputation. I didn’t provide it any guardrails on exactly the format of sources (oral arguments, etc), but I think it understood the assignment. There’s a lot of noise-to-signal, so it was important to try isolating the best sources of signal.
The more important thing was that it provides its rationale for rating candidates the way it did. Rating something is inherently a messy affair. There’s always room for error. So being transparent and up front about how something got rated, why it was rated that way, and admitting the size of the error bars, is important.
Always show your work.
Q: Which models are you using, and how much human review sits on top of the AI output before a label gets published?
Perplexity Computer uses an AI orchestrator that selects between 19 different leading models, depending on the assignment. It also has the ability to use model council, where multiple models can analyze data and synthesize output that better reduces outlier viewpoints.
In regard to human review, I exercised very little editorial opinion over how the AI assigned a label. I relied more on its published rationale to better understand the reasoning behind the rating.
Q: Where’s the line between “likely to” and “not enough to tell”? What does a borderline call look like in practice?
The AI makes the borderline call. It’s up to the human to judge whether that’s the right one. I created this site to provide humans more information about judicial candidates – not shortcut their thinking. I’ll leave it up to the political parties to spin this information however they see it, but voters deserve some reasonable semblance of thoughtful, spin-less analysis.
That’s why the rationale is included in the candidate pages.
Q: How do you handle candidates with thin records, like first-time judicial candidates or sitting judges with few published opinions on tax or Article VII questions?
There are a few questions that the AI provided at the bottom of the candidate pages, which help people elicit more signal from the candidates. Voters are encouraged to ask these questions from candidates to get a better read on how they’ll decide the case.
Additionally, there’s a comment/correction form on the site, so candidates or their campaigns (or anyone else really), can provide more information or detail. That triggers an email to me on the back-end, and I’ll do a bit of vetting before publishing changes to the site.
Q: “What’s the biggest known weakness in your method? Where would you bet you’re wrong?”
Probably AI hallucination. Lack of signal is always the number one problem. LLMs are very good at drawing some wild conclusions, so it’s very important to have world-class search functionality as part of any agentic AI workflow. Perplexity is known for having that incredible search functionality, so helps to mitigate the known weaknesses of LLM hallucination.
Q: “Has any candidate or campaign pushed back on their classification? What’s the correction process when they do?”
Not yet. The site hasn’t been up long enough. But I expect we’ll get some feedback. I always love getting lawyers mad at me. Especially if they’re Supreme Court justices.
There’s a correction form on the site. Candidates and their parties can reach out via that form. It emails me on the back-end. I review the request to make sure it’s not some spam or scam. If it looks like a legitimate request, then I’ll ask the AI to review the feedback and adjust the candidate page.
In parting, Viet said that he wants voters to thoughtfully consider the information, do more research on candidates, and share with friends.
Q: “Do you have your own stance on these candidates?”
Well, I can say that I will personally be voting against the candidates that want to tear down Culliton (i.e.., keep the income tax). On the site, those are coded amber. I’d hope people vote *against* those people. Vote *for*the people that have the blue dots.
I’m an independent, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have an opinion.
Election Day is August 4th for the Primary, and November 3rd, 2026. Voters can visit Culliton2026.org to explore the site and learn more.
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