Arizona
Tucson Weekly: Raising Taxes Is Front Page News (and It’s About Damn Time)
June 7, 2016
“Anyone making $80,000 or less a year is paying two to three times the tax rate of Arizona’s one percenters. Wealthier people may pay a higher percentage in state income taxes, but they pay a far lower rate when it comes to other taxes, especially sales tax. According to the ITEP figures, people who make […]
Higher Education Income Tax Deductions and Credits in the States
March 22, 2016 • By Carl Davis
Read full report in PDF Download detailed appendix with state-by-state information on deductions and credits (Excel) Every state levying a personal income tax offers at least one deduction or credit designed to defray the cost of higher education. In theory, these policies help families cope with rising tuition prices by incentivizing college savings or partially […]
Politifact: Has Arizona’s economy improved because of its immigration laws?
March 4, 2016
“A February 2016 report from the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that Arizona’s undocumented immigrants pay more than $231 million a year in state and local taxes.” Read more
The Arizona Republic: Valdez: US can get some easy money from migrants
February 26, 2016
Want some easy money, America? Give undocumented immigrants a break.That’s right. Drop the nasty rhetoric, and embrace some of the nation’s most maligned residents. It’ll pay off in big bucks. A new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy says undocumented immigrants pay about $11.64 billion a year in state and local […]
Latin Post: Arizona DACA Recipients Fighting to Keep In-State Tuition Rates
November 24, 2015
“According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, Arizona immigrants currently provide the state with nearly $238 million in state and local taxes. With the executive actions, immigrants would pay an additional $18.7 million in Arizona’s local and state taxes.” Read more
Children’s Action Alliance: Arizona’s Individual Income Tax
October 21, 2015
The balance and fairness of any tax system depends on the impact of all the taxes an individual or family pays. State and local sales taxes always take a bigger bite out of the income of taxpayers at the lowest income levels. Arizona’s graduated income tax partially offsets the impact of the sales tax on […]
Children’s Action Alliance: Questions and Answers About Arizona’s State Budget and Taxes
October 21, 2015
State budgets and taxes are tools to reach our common goals for health, education, security and a vibrant, prosperous future. This publication provides information and analysis to help policymakers, community leaders, and community-based organizations make good decisions about Arizona’s state budget and taxes to reach those goals. These questions and answers highlight key facts […]
The Arizona Republic: Shhhh…don’t tell pope Arizona robs the poor
September 23, 2015
“In Arizona, the most wealthy among us are taxed the least, percentage wise, and the poorest the most. According to a report this month by the non-profit, non-partisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), “While Arizona’s reputation as a “low tax state” is accurate for wealthy households, it bears little resemblance to reality for […]
Low Tax for Whom?: Arizona is a “Low Tax State” Overall, But Not for Families Living in Poverty
September 17, 2015 • By Meg Wiehe
Annual data from the U.S. Census Bureau appears to lend support to Arizona's reputation as a "low tax state," ranking it 37th nationally in taxes collected as a share of personal income.1 But focusing on the state's overall tax revenues has led many observers to overlook the fact that different taxpayers experience Arizona's tax system very differently. In particular, the poorest 20 percent of Arizona residents pay significantly more of their income (12.5 percent) in state and local taxes than any other group in the state.2 For low-income families, Arizona is far from being a low tax state. In fact,…
Bloomberg BNA: Individual Income Tax Insights: Fifty States of Rates – State Tax Systems Don’t Play Fair
September 15, 2015
“All state tax systems are inherently unfair, at least that is the verdict issued by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). ITEP’s 2015 Who Pays: A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All Fifty States report analyzed state and local tax systems to assess the fairness with which each system is designed […]
Cheat Sheet: 10 Worst States in America for Fair Tax Systems
July 13, 2015
Americans generally believe that higher income households should pay a greater percentage of their incomes in taxes than lower income households. Yet the exact opposite occurs. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) finds the nationwide average effective state and local tax rates by income group are 10.9% for the poorest 20% of individuals […]
Georgia Budget and Policy Institute: Income Tax Cuts Won’t Boost Georgia Economy
May 7, 2015
Big income tax cuts did not improve the economies of states that enacted them, and states without income taxes do not consistently grow more jobs or have stronger economies. Six states cut income taxes sharply from 2002 to 2007, before the most recent recession. Three of them – Arizona, Ohio and Rhode Island – grew […]
The Tucson Weekly: A Rich Switch
April 2, 2015
The first study came from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which regularly gathers data to show how the tax burden is spread across a state’s population. ITEP’s most recent report, released in January, showed that Arizona was eighth worst state in terms of pushing the tax burden on lower earners because it relies […]
Phoenix Business: Arizona Misses List of Top 10 Tax Shift States
March 31, 2015
Turns out, Arizona missed a new list that looks at the supply-side tax cut to shift income equality. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found ten states passed laws this session that effectively shift tax burdens to the poor and middle class. Each of the identified states (listed below) passed trickle-down tax cuts, according […]
Arizona Daily Sun: Arizona Tax Burden Heavy for the Poor
March 26, 2015
Even more detailed figures from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy bear that out. It finds those in the top 1 percent of Arizona earners — those making more than $402,000 a year — are paying just 1 percent of what they make in sales taxes. Read more
Tucson Weekly: It’s True. Arizona Taxes Screw the Poor
March 26, 2015
In general, WalletHub is a font of half-baked statistics (I mean, it declared Tucson the fifth best city in “Efficient Spending on Education” because we spend so little on schools). But in this case, they got it right, and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which Fischer also cited, got it even more right in […]
Children’s Action Alliance: HB 2069 – S/E Online TPT/Income Tax Reduction Fact Sheet
March 6, 2015
HB 2069 shifts taxes from the wealthiest Arizonans to low and middle income taxpayers, attempts to limit options available to future legislatures, and depends on a “best guess” to make sure that state revenues aren’t cut back too far with no chance of correction….This ill-advised legislation has many problems: At a time when Arizona is […]
WFSP (Arizona): Arizona’s Unfair Tax System Targets the Poor/Middle Class
February 20, 2015
Arizona’s local and state tax system targets the middle class, and the poorest people in the state pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than the richest people do, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. In fact, the Tax Inequality Index, released in January 2015, ranks Arizona’s local and state […]
Major tax overhauls are on the agenda in a record number of states, and “Who Pays?” documents in state-by-state detail the precise distribution of state income taxes, sales and excise taxes and property taxes paid by each income group as of January 2013. It is a critical baseline against which future proposals can be measured. […]
Slate: Republicans Are Finally Talking About Income Inequality
January 24, 2015
The problem is that this shifts the tax burden from the top to the bottom. In other words, it’s upward redistribution of wealth that harms the least well-off. And while the vast majority of states have tax systems that hit low-income Americans the hardest, these effects are worst in conservative states, where the highest tax […]
Arise Citizens’ Policy Project: Study on Alabama’s tax system: The less you make, the bigger share you pay
January 21, 2015
Low- and middle-income Alabamians pay more than twice as much in taxes as a share of their income compared to the state’s wealthiest residents, according to a study released Wednesday by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C. The study, Who Pays?, analyzes tax systems in […]
Salon: Defiant Sam Brownback vows to move toward zero income tax — and make Kansas even more unequal
January 16, 2015
“A study released this week underscores one of the most pernicious effects of such a tax regime: It exacerbates inequality. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that “[v]irtually every state’s tax system is fundamentally unfair,” with state and local taxes eating disproportionately into lower-income workers’ wages. But the effect was far worse in […]
Phoenix News Times: Arizona Has One of Nation’s Most Regressive Tax Systems
January 15, 2015
“Arizonans on the lower end of the income scale are paying a significantly higher portion of their incomes in taxes than wealthier Arizonans. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a non-profil research organization, released a report showing the nation’s poorest taxpayers have an effective tax rate that’s double that of the richest Americans. In […]
The Arizona Republic: Obama’s Action Should Increase Tax Collections
November 24, 2014
Both Arizona’s Department of Revenue and the Joint Legislative Budget Committee said they have not estimated the tax and revenue impact of Obama’s executive action. However, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a Washington-based think tank, estimated last year that undocumented immigrants currently pay about $10.6 billion a year in state and local taxes […]
The Tucson Weekly: Arizona Is the 5th Worth State to Be Poor–Tax Wise
November 20, 2014
Everybody knows Arizona is a low tax state. Our legislature has been cutting rates for decades, and as a result, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, we’re number 35 in overall state taxes; only 15 states have rates lower than ours. Not so if you’re poor, however. If you make $27,000 or […]
