‘Those costs trickle down’: Frustrated business owner threatens to leave WA over rising taxes
May 30, 2025, 5:15 PM
Washington Governor Bob Ferguson signed a Washington bill that will cap rent increases. (Photo courtesy of TVW)
(Photo courtesy of TVW)
Business owners in Washington are fed up with high state taxes.
Dan Kinley is the owner of KINEX Commercial, a brokerage firm based out of Yakima that focuses on commercial real estate. Earlier this week, he took to to express his frustration with high taxes, stating that he is now shifting his focus to markets outside of the state.
Kinley told “The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH that the passing of House Bill 1217, a measure designed to cap annual rent increases, is the primary motivation for his shift.
“I know some of it’s probably not all Washington’s fault, like our insurance increases,” Kinley said, “But we’ve got properties here in Yakima where I saw a 40% increase in my real estate taxes and a 30% increase in my insurance.”
Kinley said that even with these taxes, he still must find a way to cover costs as a landlord, and this will inevitably impact the consumer.
“No matter how you look at it, everything trickles down at the end of the day to just the everyday person in Washington state,” Kinley said. “If I get an increase in my real estate taxes, eventually, I have to raise my rents, and those tenants have to raise their prices, and so on and so forth.”
The politics of taxes
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KTTH host Jason Rantz asked Kinley if he thinks the problem is rooted in political ideology.
“I think that people’s philosophies and ideologies are not in line with businesses in the state,” Kinley said. “It does tend to be, unfortunately, more Democrats that don’t think about the business person and even how those costs trickle down.”
Kinley does most of his business with his family in Yakima but is now working on some capital-raising projects in Kansas City. After the recent passing of his father, Kinley said his Yakima estate taxes “were enormous.” Now he is wondering if it is time to stop dealing with real estate in Washington altogether.
“I feel like it just continues to get worse,” Kinley said. “There’s so many other things…we deal with as landlords…it just continues to get harder and harder to deal with.”
Listen to the full conversation below.
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