Washington Post: Ahead of regional summit, left-leaning policy groups say ‘No’ to a sales tax for Metro
media mentionA regionwide one-cent sales tax to fund Metro would have a disproportionate impact on poor families, taking five times the share of income from the bottom 20 percent of earners when compared with those in the top 1 percent, according to a new analysis from a trio of left-leaning think tanks representing the District, Maryland and Virginia.
…The analysis, conducted by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, found that while a penny-per-dollar sales tax would cost those making more than $600,000 less than 0.1 percent of their income, those making less than $25,000 would sacrifice 0.5 percent of their earnings. Black and Latino families in the District would be the hardest hit, according to the report, because 38 percent and 35 percent of their households, respectively, have incomes below $50,000, the report says.