The D.C. Council voted down a measure that would have increased taxes on the city’s wealthy.
The amendment to the budget that would have raised taxes on households with annual incomes of $200,000 or more was part of Mayor Vince Gray’s $5.5 billion budget proposal submitted to the council last month, but council Chairman Kwame Brown took it out when he put his version of the budget in front of the council on Wednesday.
The council, however, voted down the amendment 8-5, with councilmen Marion Barry and Tommy Wells playing key roles in voting against it. Both men have previously supported raising taxes in the wealthy, but they both bought into a proposal by Brown to replace the dollars raised by the income tax rate hike with a tax on out-of-state municipal bonds.
Gray said in a letter to the council that he supports Brown’s budget. He also said he won’t veto the budget simply because Brown switched the income tax hike for the tax on bonds, which The Washington Examiner reported on Monday that he would do on Monday.
