Louisiana Budget Project: The federal deduction needs reform
ITEP Work in Action“There are two key questions confronting Louisiana officials as they grapple with the most serious budget crisis in a generation: How much new tax revenue does Louisiana need in order to maintain the critical services that citizens expect? And secondly – who should pay those extra taxes?
As things stand, Louisianans as a whole are lightly taxed compared to the rest of the country; our state has the fifth-lowest state and local tax burden, according to the Tax Foundation. But the distribution of those taxes is skewed against those who can least afford to pay. While the poorest 40 percent of taxpayers give 10 percent of their income to state and local taxes (mostly sales taxes), those in the top 1 percent give up just 4.2 percent of their taxable income.”