Arizona

In a year of cautious uncertainty around current and ongoing revenues, many state lawmakers strengthened their tax credits for families and children.

Under H.R. 1, the federal tax package passed last year, the richest 1% of Arizonans are set to receive an average tax cut of nearly $80,000, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The lowest-income 20% of Arizonans will receive about $10. Read more.

As we head into summer, many state legislatures are in the final stretches of their sessions. Rhode Island moved another step closer to joining the ranks of Washington, Maine, and Hawai’i in enacting a new high-income surcharge this year.

The effects of last year’s federal tax and spending cuts continue to ripple through the states. With gas prices soaring due to the Iran war, some states are attempting to provide a bit of relief in the form of gas tax reductions and suspensions.

This week Hawaiʻi lawmakers reached a compromise to balance the state budget and maintain tax cuts for most residents by, in part, raising rates on the richest Hawaiians. Other states are working to generate revenue from their wealthiest residents, too.

In Washington, Gov. Bob Ferguson and lawmakers decided to stop fooling around with one of the nation’s most upside-down tax codes and finally brought to life a new millionaires’ tax, the first new income tax created in a state since 1991.

As many state legislative sessions near or cross the halfway point, lawmakers are facing tough choices.

State lawmakers are grappling with a range of challenges as their fiscal outlooks deteriorate, federal tax enforcement wanes (after the Trump administration cut the IRS workforce by 25 percent), and a rewritten federal tax code sends states scrambling to decide what changes they might want to make in their own codes.

Despite wintry conditions across much of the country, that hasn’t stopped state lawmakers from debating major tax policy changes.