Reforming our tax code is about ensuring a fair, shared responsibility for the programs and services – for safe and clean streets, for public infrastructure, for housing assistance, for healthy food access – that we all rely on. Our District must work for all of us, not just those who can most easily afford it.  

Today, the Council held a public hearing on revenue proposals for the fiscal year 2028 budget, a conversation long overdue. Proposals on the table included my bills to establish a wealth proceeds tax and to revise our land assessment methodology, as well as a new business activity tax, and changes to the sales, property, and income taxes. 

Fundamentally, the tax and revenue proposals the Council discussed are about fairness.   

Is it fair that there is a loophole that allows out-of-state businesses to operate in the District, benefit from it, and not pay taxes here, when local businesses doing the same work do pay taxes?   

Is it fair that the District treats income from wealth more favorably than earned income?  

Is it fair that District taxpayers in the top 20 percent for income have lower effective tax rates than those in the middle?  

In every budget, the Mayor and the Council are forced to make difficult choices. And far too often those choices include cuts to our social safety net – and asking our most vulnerable neighbors to “figure it out” as funds are drained from housing, TANF, Alliance, childcare assistance, and other programs.  

It has been six years since the Council has had a dedicated Finance and Revenue Committee to help guide us through this process. And those six years have been some of the most tumultuous for the District’s finances and revenues since the 1990s.  

Even when the Council re-established the Tax Revision Commission, we made little progress in creating a more sustainable and equitable tax code. 

The changes we have made to the tax code in the last six years have been made outside of the Committee process, without official recommendations from the Commission, through amendments to the budget.  

Don’t get me wrong: I am proud of those accomplishments, including my work on the Homes and Hearts Amendment. 

This budget amendment, which I authored with Councilmembers Janesse Lewis-George and Charles Allen in 2021, resulted in funding for housing for 2,000 residents through a small tax increase on our wealthiest residents. Analysis from the Tax Revision Commission found that this did not result in any discernable tax flight.  

But I also know there is a better way to do this.  

That’s why I introduced a bill to establish a permanent tax and revenue commission. District leaders need good, non-politicized information and recommendations to generate and vet proposals on a regular basis. Just as the size of our budget is not going to be changed by cuts here and there, we cannot achieve a sustainable financial picture with a piecemeal approach to revenue. 

Not all of these tax proposals will generate a ton of revenue. Some of them will be revenue neutral. But they do all make our District more equitable and fair, and that’s what this is about for me. 

The Wealth Proceeds Tax legislation is a straightforward proposal that applies a 3 percent surcharge to qualifying passive investment income above $400,000 for an individual or $500,000 for a married couple.   

The goal is simple: protect ordinary wages and ensure that those who receive substantial returns from accumulated wealth contribute fairly to the city we all depend on.  

It’s fair to ask a very wealthy household to bear more of the burden, to pay more taxes on the money they make by already having money, rather than asking a person working a regular job to pay more – or to ask the person who makes very little and relies on SNAP or rental assistance to supplement, to try and get by with a little less.  

The other bill I introduced that was under consideration today – the Revenue Stabilization and Land Value Assessment Amendment Act of 2026 – would greatly improve the District’s uneven cash flow by splitting two property tax payments per year into four.  

The bill would encourage revisions to the property assessment process, so that assessments accurately reflect the value of land, distinct from the buildings on that land. This would pave the way for policies that encourage more productive development, reduce incentives to leave valuable land underused, and make our property tax system more proactive to how land is actually used.  

These proposals would help make sure our tax code does not exacerbate the sharply growing divide between the wealthy and the rest of us. They would allow us to achieve a balanced budget that funds key services and programs year after year so that District residents may thrive.  

And they would help propel the District into an economic future that is stable, equitable, and fiscally responsible, one in which everyone pays their fair share.