As lawmakers prepare for the 2026 legislative session, many have pre-filed bills with hopes that they can push them through quickly during the year's short 60-day session, which begins next week.
A pair of longshot bills, if approved and signed into law, would repeal some of the most significant tax increases passed last year, including those on businesses, consumers and even synthetic nicotine products.
State Rep. Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama, introduced two very straightforward bills at the beginning of last month that could make the session complicated if they gain any ground.
House Bills 2335 and 2130 propose repealing a collection of tax hikes and new tax policies approved by the Washington state Legislature during the 2025 legislative session. Those same taxes were used to close the state government's multi-billion-dollar projected shortfall last year.
Orcutt filed the first of the two bills, House Bill 2335, on Dec. 8. The bill, according to its title, is intended to repeal business and occupation tax increases approved last year.
The bill calls for repealing large sections of business and occupation tax hikes imposed on many industries last year. It also repeals a surcharge on businesses that make more than $250 million in gross profit each year, along with a surcharge on advanced computing and some additional minor changes.
Orcutt filed the second of the two tax-repealing bills two days later, Dec. 10.
The second bill calls for the repeal of Senate Bill 5814 and the changes it enforced in Washington state law. That Senate bill is the one responsible for the widespread expansion of sales and use taxes in the state of Washington that Republican politicians have frequently decried.
That includes sales taxes on a range of services that once were not taxed by the state's sales tax levy. The sales being taxed include tech services, hospital staffing services, live presentations, telehealth and telemedicine and more. The bill is also responsible for the expansion of the state's other tobacco products tax, to include synthetic nicotine products such as Zyn pouches.
The state's other tobacco products tax is a tax that was established on all nicotine products that are not cigarettes.
With Democrats in firm control of the state Legislature and the governor’s office, it is unlikely that Orcutt’s proposals will make it through the session.
