Washington Taxation
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Online Resources
- 1857-1875 Washington, State Auditor territorial assessments
- 1869-1874 Washington Internal Revenue assessment lists
- 1917-1924 Certificate of head tax paid by aliens arriving at Seattle from foreign contiguous territory. These are sorted by years, but are not sorted alphabetically inside of each year.
Why Use Tax Records
By studying several consecutive years of tax records you may determine when a young men came of age, when individuals moved in and out of a home, or when they died leaving heirs. Authorities determined wealth (real estate, or income) to be taxed. Taxes can be for polls, real and personal estate, or schools.
Tax record content varies and may include the name and residence of the taxpayer, description of the real estate, name of original purchaser, description of personal property, number of males over 21, number of school children, slaves, and farm animals. Tax records usually are arranged by date and locality and are not normally indexed. Tax records can be used in place of missing land and census records to locate a person’s residence.
How to Use Tax Records for Washington
County Level
Washington's only tax records are for real and personal property, which were both taken at the county level. The records are held by the county assessors and the county treasurers. In some cases, the Washington State Archives' regional branches have acquired older records. These branches are excellent places to begin searching for county tax records. Not all county tax records have survived. Inheritance tax records are on microfilm at the Washington State Archives from 1901 until the tax was discontinued in 1981.[1]
State Level
There are three Depositories for the state of Washington, one specializes in digitizing records.
Washington State Archives
Address: 1129 Washington St SE
Olympia, WA 98501
Phone: (360) 586-1492
Washington State Archives
Washington State Archives, Digital Archives
960 Washington Street
Cheney, WA 99004
(509) 235-7500
Washington State Archives, Digital Archives
Puget Sound Regional Branch - Washington State Archives
Pritchard-Fleming Building
3000 Landerholm Circle SE, MS-
Address: Bellevue, WA 98007
Phone: (425) 564-3940
Puget Sound Regional Branch
- prior to 1891 Family records of Washington pioneers prior to 1891. Available only at the Salt Lake City, UT FamilySearch Library.
Tax Laws
Abraham Lincoln instituted the income tax in 1862, and on July 1, 1862, Congress passed the Internal Revenue Act, creating the Bureau of Internal Revenue (later renamed to the Internal Revenue Service). This act was intended to “provide Internal Revenue to support the Government and to pay interest on the Public Debt.” Instituted in the height of the Civil War, the “Public Debt” at the time primarily consisted of war expenses. For the Southern States that were part of the Confederate side of the Civil War, once Union troops took over parts of the Southern States, income tax were instituted on them. [2]
- See United States, Internal Revenue Assessment Lists - FamilySearch Historical Records for more information about the collection.
- See Income Tax Records of the Civil War Years at the National Archives for more information about Civil War taxes
What history has shown us is that while property taxes are locally levied, there is significant state involvement with the amount of tax local political subdivisions can levy, how property assessments are conducted, and what services local taxing subdivisions must provide for their residents. This comes at a cost to state taxpayers, because the state has obligations it must fund as well, with a limited amount of state tax dollars.