Seattle has collected far less revenue from its “gun violence tax” than projected, but it will not provide a specific dollar amount. (Dave Workman)
By Dave Workman
Senior Editor
More than a year after the Seattle City Council rushed through a “gun violence tax” on the sale of firearms and ammunition, the city revealed Tuesday that its first-year revenues had fallen far short of the projected $300,000 to $500,000, but offered only a general figure of “less than $200,000.”
How much less? The city won’t say.
Alan Gottlieb, SAF founder and publisher of TheGunMag.com, said a generalized figure of “less than $200,000” does not satisfy the original PRA request filed by senior editor Dave Workman in 2016.
When TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press contacted the city for more detail, Glen Lee, director of Finance and Administrative Services declined to narrow down the dollar amount.
“That was the most we could disclose,” Lee said in a telephone conversation.
He noted that state law and city code “support” withholding more detailed information in the interest of taxpayer privacy. If the city were to provide a more accurate figure, he explained, that could result in disclosing taxpayer information.
“Back in 2015, when the city adopted this gun tax, there were predictions that it would generate between $300,000 and $500,000 in revenue,” Gottlieb recalled. “Here we are, more than a year after the tax took effect, and the city still hasn’t released any information. The public has a right to know whether this was an accurate forecast, or just a pie-in-the-sky sales pitch to push this tax into law.
“Other news agencies have sought this information,” he added, “and we invite and challenge the media to join with us in the fight to protect the First Amendment and the people’s right to know because this is clearly a First Amendment issue. The city has argued that releasing the tax revenue information would jeopardize the privacy of the few businesses that have paid the tax, but that argument seems pretty thin. It’s becoming our strong suspicion that the city doesn’t want to release the revenue figure because it doesn’t come close to what they predicted.”
In an email provided to the Seattle Times, the city also said that there are “approximately 15 potential firearm and ammunition taxpayers in the city for 2016.
The same information was provided to attorneys for TheGunMag.com and the Second Amendment Foundation, which are suing the city over failure to disclose revenue information under the Public Records Act.
The city is being sued separately by SAF, the National Rifle Association and National Shooting Sports Foundation, along with two firearms retailers, in a direct challenge to the tax. They argue that the tax is a form of gun control and therefore violates Washington State’s 33-year-old preemption law.
It was recently disclosed that the city has not spent any of the tax revenue to pay for the “gun violence” research that it was originally supposed to fund. Instead, the city has allocated $275,000 from the general fund to pay for the research, while the lawsuit is still in progress.
SAF has issued an invitation to other Seattle-area media to join or support TheGunMag.com’s PRA lawsuit.
