Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson is waving ‘bye’ to billionaire tax evaders

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson laughed off and appeared to encourage the idea that millionaires could leave Washington state while discussing her support for a progressive tax during an interview earlier this month.

“I think the claims that millionaires are going to leave our country are, like, overblown. And if — those who leave, like, bye,” he said, prompting cheers and laughter from the audience at Seattle University’s Seattle University Conversations event on April 14.

Wilson was asked if he believes progressive taxes are a “simple” and “promising” solution to the local tax situation. He said he never thought they were easy, but he said he was happy with the millionaire’s tax passed in the province.

“Generally speaking, we still have a tax system that’s very low, and my office is doing a lot of work to look at what we can do about progressive taxation,” he said. “We have more flexibility in the city, in the region, in terms of our taxing authority. And at the same time, I believe what I said before, that is, it is not good for the business environment of Seattle, for example, the cost of doing business in the city of Seattle to go bad, for example, the neighboring Bellevue,” he said.

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Wilson said he is looking at progressive tax options that don’t increase the cost of hiring people in Seattle.

“We have a big budget deficit in the city that we’re going to have to figure out how to deal with this next budget cycle,” he added. “And my budget office, the budget staff are working hard trying to figure out both how we can spend our money as efficiently and effectively as possible. And I think the same withholding from the executive, okay, if there are programs that don’t deliver on their promise and don’t work, like we won’t be afraid to eliminate them, right?”

“And so I guess progress doesn’t mean we keep spending money, and we never stop doing things, right?” Wilson continued. “So I think – that’s very important. And at the same time, we probably won’t need new money.”

The mayor of Seattle was elected in November 2025 and compared to the mayor of New York City Zohran Mamdani, as both are democratic socialists.

Wilson defeated the incumbent Mayor of Seattle Bruce Harrell in November. Like Mamdani, he has openly campaigned on progressive ideas such as state-owned grocery stores, despite their “failures,” the Washington Post editorial board wrote at the time.

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Starbucks Corp. headquarters. in Seattle, Washington, on September 26, 2025. (David Ryder/Bloomberg)

Fox 13 Seattle reports earlier this month that the Emerald City “could lose up to $750 million in tax revenue in the coming years as Starbucks expands in Tennessee instead of Washington.”

In a Press release On Tuesday, Starbucks announced that it will invest $100 billion and bring 2,000 new jobs to Nashville.

Wilson, after winning the mayoral election in 2025, joined the picket line of Starbucks protesters, and said, “That’s why I’m proud to join them in their picket line and I’m proud to say loud and clear, I don’t buy Starbucks and neither should you,” according to KUOW.

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According to the Tax FoundationSeattle has the highest state and local sales tax rate, sitting at 10.35%.

Seattle surpassed the city of Tacoma, Washington, which has a tax rate of 10.3 percent, where King County, where Seattle is located, adopted an additional 0.1 percent sales tax to generate additional revenue for nonprofit organizations that provide cultural programming, according to the Tax Foundation.

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Fox News’ Rachel del Guidice and Nikolas Lanum contributed to this report.