Streetsblog: Unlike Toll Reform, A Sale Tax Is a Really Regressive Way to Fund Transit
media mentionBy Stephen Miller
But a sales tax is one of the most regressive revenue-raisers out there. Of the types of taxes states typically levy — on property, income, and sales — “sales and excise taxes are the most regressive, with poor families paying eight times more of their income in these taxes than wealthy families, and middle income families paying five times more,” according to the non-partisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. In New York, sales taxes already hit the poorest fifth of the state’s households more than twice as hard as the wealthiest fifth, when measured as a percentage of income.