This month, we watched billionaire space-racers with skyrocketing fortunes literally rocket themselves into the sky to look down on us from the largest gap they could put between themselves and the people, communities, and institutions that made their fortunes possible. These events have put an exclamation point on one of the clearest lessons to come […]

Delayed legislative sessions and protracted federal aid debates have made for a busier June than normal for state fiscal debates. Arizona, New Hampshire, and North Carolina legislators, for example, are still pushing for expensive and regressive tax cuts in their states while they remain in session...

Taxing rich households and large corporations to fund vital investments in education and other shared priorities has long been a winner in the eyes of the American public, and more recently has also enjoyed a string of victories in state legislatures and at the ballot box. That win streak continued this week as Arizona’s voter-approved tax surcharge on the rich and Seattle, Washington’s payroll tax on high-profit, high-salary businesses both survived court challenges, and Massachusetts leaders approved a millionaires tax to go before voters next year.

“Tax Day” was earlier this week but the debates, research, and advocacy that determine our taxes and how they are used take place every day of the year...

We had our noses buried in new American Rescue Plan guidance...when we heard the refreshing news that Missouri leaders are on the verge of modernizing their tax code, not only by becoming the final state to apply sales taxes to online purchases, but also by enacting an Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)...Meanwhile, tax debates are also highly active in California, Colorado, Louisiana, Maine, and Nebraska. We also share some of our own reporting on recent efforts in Arizona and several other states to undermine voter-approved reforms and democratic institutions themselves.

This week’s state fiscal news brings a reminder that even though advocates for great economic and racial justice have won some major progressive victories recently, anti-tax zealots have been hard at work too. Lawmakers advanced or enacted troubling regressive tax cuts or shifts in Idaho, Kansas, and Montana, and are actively debating them in Iowa, […]

North Carolina lawmakers may have approved a massive tax subsidy giveaway to Apple, but we won’t let that news spoil our barrel this week. Nor will we be discouraged by Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont’s threats to upset the apple cart full of positive progressive tax reforms state lawmakers recently came together to approve...Why all the optimism? Because the apple of our eye this week is Washington State, where advocates and lawmakers succeeded in a decade-long fight...

“Bold progressive victories” is probably not the first phrase that comes to mind when thinking about state laws enacted so far in 2021...But progressive advocates, lawmakers, and voters have won some tremendous victories in states recently...We should celebrate them for the achievements they are—and closely study them for lessons they can teach about how to bring about positive progressive change in these and other states.

Just as a recent cold snap reminded us that spring has not fully sprung yet, this week’s news has been full of reminders that state fiscal debates aren’t quite finished either...

Two significant victories headlined state tax debates in the past week, as New Mexico leaders improved existing targeted tax credits to give bigger boosts and reach more families in need, and West Virginia lawmakers unanimously shut down a destructive effort to eliminate the state’s progressive income tax. These developments follow last week’s major wins for progressive taxation and targeted assistance in New York, and more good news is likely soon as Washington legislators continue to advance their own targeted credit for working families. Not all the news is positive though, as costly and/or regressive tax cuts remain on the table…

New York lawmakers stole the spotlight this week as they were able to agree on—and convince reluctant Gov. Andrew Cuomo to support—strong progressive tax increases on the highest-income households and corporations in the state to fund shared priorities like K-12 education and pandemic recovery efforts. Minnesota leaders are attempting a similar performance off Broadway with progressive reforms of their own, while Kansas legislators are getting poor reviews for cutting a number of taxes and worsening their budget situation. Thankfully major tax changes stayed backstage as sessions concluded in Georgia and Mississippi.

Supporters of tax fairness and adequate funding for public needs are hoping West Virginia’s income tax elimination effort turns out to be a prank, but most states are not fooling around with such harmful policies this year. For example...

It was a relatively quiet week in state fiscal policy, likely partly due to states waiting for federal guidance on some of the details in the American Rescue Plan. As they await those details, lawmakers in Mississippi and West Virginia continue to wrangle over whether to recklessly eliminate their income taxes, while leaders in states including Connecticut and New York considered more productive and progressive reforms. And in the meantime, groundbreaking work on the intersection of race and tax policy is now available.

We wrote last week that the inclusion of fiscal relief for states and localities in Congress’s American Rescue Plan should free up state lawmakers’ time and attention to focus on the comprehensive reforms needed to address upside-down and inadequate tax codes, and some states are already doing just that.

State and local policymakers will be preoccupied for a short time with celebrating and deciphering the federal pandemic relief package approved today, but ultimately the federal aid should free them to focus on even bigger concerns such as tax codes that often fail to adequately fund core priorities even in good years and exacerbate the economic and racial inequities that this pandemic has laid bare.

Although lawmakers in some states continue to push for expensive and regressive tax cuts that would primarily benefit wealthy households, worsen economic and racial injustices, and undermine funding for key public services, this week’s state fiscal news is dominated by efforts to do the opposite. Leaders in the District of Columbia, Maine, Nebraska, New York, Washington, and Wyoming made recent headlines by advocating for policies that improve on upside-down tax codes and generate needed funding for shared priorities like schools and health care.

Warming temperatures in many parts of the country this week seem to be thawing out state fiscal debates as well. Multiple states including California, Colorado, Maryland, and New Jersey saw movement on efforts to improve tax credits for low- and middle-income families. Mississippi House lawmakers suddenly rushed through a dangerous bill to eliminate the state’s income tax and shift those taxes onto lower-income households. Montana senators also approved regressive income tax cuts and South Dakota legislators advanced an anti-tax constitutional amendment, while lawmakers in Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Washington made progress on improving the progressivity of their tax codes. Gas…

Cold-hearted regressive tax proposals were pushed this week to cut income taxes on high-income households in states including Idaho, Montana, and West Virginia, while advocates for fair taxes and well-funded services continue to turn up the heat on taxing the richest residents in states like Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

This week, the governors of New Hampshire and West Virginia proposed to eliminate their states’ most progressive revenue sources and shift taxes even more heavily onto the middle- and low-income families who already pay the highest rates in both states. It was also a big week for proponents of legalizing recreational cannabis, as that movement made progress in Hawaii, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

States face shifting landscapes as they attempt to deal with both emergent and longstanding issues in their tax codes and budget structures. This is particularly evident in Oklahoma, where lawmakers must adjust to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that literally redraws state boundaries by recognizing the rights of indigenous communities, but is true in every state, and lawmakers in many of them are rising to the challenge. Read below and see our blog posted today for more on bold proposals that increase tax fairness and solidify bottom lines with needed revenue in states including Connecticut, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont,…

Efforts to deliver and improve targeted tax credits to support low- and middle-income families proved to be unifying in Washington and Oregon, welcome developments in an otherwise divisive week in state tax debates. For example, Mississippi advocates hoping to end the state’s regressive grocery tax are up against a governor and many lawmakers pulling in the opposite direction by trying to eliminate its income tax. After Arizona residents approved an income tax increase to improve education funding, policymakers there are seeking to reverse course by slashing taxes instead. And North Dakota lawmakers are considering converting their graduated income tax into…

You won’t find any images of Bernie Sanders and his mittens photoshopped into this week’s Rundown, but you will find the latest news on state fiscal debates, including proposals to generate needed funding by raising taxes on high-income households and profiting businesses in California, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, and Washington, as well as misguided efforts to slash taxes in Arizona, Iowa, South Carolina, Utah, and West Virginia. Also in the news are thoughtful improvements to targeted tax credits for families in need in Connecticut and Maryland, harmful obstacles to revenue generation proposed in Nebraska and Wyoming, and renewed hope on the…

As states kick off their 2021 legislative sessions, it’s clear that many governors and lawmakers are attempting to “take a mulligan” on the last year and recycle tax-slashing ideas that were already bad in 2020 and are even worse now as states try to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic and accompanying downturn...On a brighter note, Illinois leaders showed they did learn from the events of 2020, passing a major criminal justice reform bill and payday loan protections intended to reduce racial inequities.

Though most people’s attention is rightly focused on events unfolding in the nation’s capital this week, state legislative debates are also underway or soon to begin in many states, including proposals to tax the rich in New York and Rhode Island, provide a boost to low-income families in California, and legalize and tax cannabis in Missouri and Rhode Island.

State policymakers and advocates may face some long sleepless nights as they close the book on 2020 and prepare for the important decisions they’ll be making in 2021 and beyond. So we at ITEP have consulted with ghosts of fiscal crunches past, present, and future, and distilled their lessons into seven key things to keep in mind for 2021 tax and budget debates: