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I believe zacharycohn meant "regressive" as in "imposes a harsher burden on lower-income households than on households with higher incomes."[0] In this sense, Washington state does have a regressive tax system, in part thanks to 0% income tax and higher than average sales tax.

[0] https://www.thebalance.com/regressive-tax-definition-history...

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Upvoted you. After reading the comment again I see that it should be interpreted the way you describe.

Yes, progressive vs regressive taxes are a technical term.

Yes, but I think it's a relatively new or transient interpretation. I couldn't find much of an authoritative basis for it. It would be great if you could post any links that you know of.

There's a wikipedia article on it, but none of the key references exist any more : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_tax

"The technical term for such taxation is regressive taxation" - Seligman 1894 https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2485696.pdf

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