Photo by Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie.

As the D.C. Council prepares to meet in its first session since it came back from summer recess and the last session before the beginning of the 2012 fiscal year, its members appear ready to raise taxes on some of the city’s highest earners.

According to the Post, Councilmember Phil Mendelson (D-At-Large) seems to have corralled the necessary votes to increase the income tax rate on those making more than $350,000 a year from 8.5 to 8.95 percent. Should the tax increase pass, it would likely delay the implementation of a new tax on out-of-state municipal bonds until January 2012.

The bond tax, which was added to the 2012 D.C. budget during debates earlier this summer, provoked push-back from investors and retirees, and an attempt by D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown to delay it was vetoed by Mayor Vince Gray in August.

Should the council impose the new tax on high-earners — roughly 6,000 people in the District make more than $350,000 a year — it would represent a surprising twist in what has been a dizzying fight over city finances. In April, Mayor Gray proposed a tax increase on residents making more than $200,000; Brown opposed the move, and engineered it out of the final version of the budget. In its place appeared the bond tax, which engendered more popular opposition than the tax increase had. Additionally, once the bond tax was included in the budget, Brown would have had to find $13 million to delay its imposition until 2012. He never did, despite a recent announcement that the city had stumbled across an additional $89 million for what remained of the 2011 Fiscal Year. (What will be done with that money is still a matter of some debate.)

Ironically, the tax increase that may be considered today will have to be passed today, yet another example of the council acting on financial matters at the last minute.