1,134 posts
Florida Policy Institute: A Citizens Guide to Florida’s Budget
• By ITEP Staff
Florida is known worldwide as a vacation destination, but those of us who live here know that the way Florida takes in and spends money affects every aspect of our lives. From now until 2030, people age 60 and older will account for most of Florida’s population growth, representing 56.9 percent of the gains. Adequate […]
State Tax & Revenue Information
• By ITEP Staff
Below is a list of notable resources for information on state taxes and revenues: Alabama Alabama Department of Revenue Alabama Department of Finance – Executive Budget Office Alabama Department of Revenue – Tax Incentives for Industry Alabama Legislative Fiscal Office Alaska Alaska Department of Revenue – Tax Division Alaska Office of Management & Budget Alaska […]
Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy: House Bill 67
• By ITEP Staff
The Idaho Legislature is considering a proposal that would cut top income tax and corporate tax rates. The bill will also eliminate the income tax on the first $750 of taxable household income. This proposal would substantially reduce Idaho’s general fund revenue. Estimates of the impact range from $51 million to $56 million. A majority […]
Washington State Budget & Policy Center: Creating a Safeguard Rebate Is Key to Equitable Property Tax Reform
• By ITEP Staff
This is the fourth in a series of schmudget blog posts about property taxes in Washington state and the role they play in funding basic K-12 education. Any reform to the Washington state property tax code to help pay for schools must also take steps to make the tax code more equitable. In conjunction […]
Tax Justice Digest: A Visual Tour of Who Pays, 2017 State Tax Trends
• By ITEP Staff
In the Tax Justice Digest we recap the latest reports, blog posts, and analyses from Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Here’s a rundown of what we’ve been working on lately. New! A Visual Tour of Who Pays State and Local Taxes To help inform 2017 statehouse debates, ITEP […]
Fairness Matters: A Chart Book on Who Pays State and Local Taxes
• By Carl Davis, Meg Wiehe
When states shy away from personal income taxes in favor of higher sales and excise taxes, high-income taxpayers benefit at the expense of low- and moderate-income families who often face above-average tax rates to pick up the slack. This chart book demonstrates this basic reality by examining the distribution of taxes in states that have pursued these types of policies. Given the detrimental impact that regressive tax policies have on economic opportunity, income inequality, revenue…
Alaska’s Motor Fuel Tax: A National and Historical Outlier
• By Carl Davis
Alaska Gov. Bill Walker recently proposed tripling his state's motor fuel tax rates.[1] While a variety of fuel types would be affected by this proposal, three-fourths (or $60 million) of the revenue raised each year would come from higher taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel--sometimes referred to as highway fuels--purchased by Alaska motorists. Absent any national or historical context, tripling Alaska's gasoline and diesel fuel tax rates may sound like a radical policy change. But…
Tax Justice Digest: Kansas again, state budget woes, and corporate tax cuts
• By ITEP Staff
In the Tax Justice Digest we recap the latest reports, blog posts, and analyses from Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Here’s a rundown of what we’ve been working on lately. Trickle-down policies did not and will not work In December, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback told the Wall Street Journal that […]
Policy Matters Ohio: Flat tax would mean more taxes for most
• By ITEP Staff
Nearly three-quarters of Ohioans would pay more in state income taxes under flat-rate tax plans for which a joint legislative commission is developing an implementation plan. At the same time, the most affluent 1 percent of Ohioans would see tax cuts averaging $4,000 or more a year. Nearly three-quarters of Ohioans would pay more […]
Maine Center for Economic Policy Releases Findings Related to Distributional Impacts of Governor LePage’s Budget Proposal
• By ITEP Staff
MECEP finds that Governor LePage’s budget proposal includes an upside down tax plan that will lead to the following outcomes: Taxes will go up on average for Maine families with income below $92,000. This represents the bottom 80% of Mainers who will see an average tax increase of approximately $85. The top 1% of […]
Trump Plan to Give Billions in Tax Breaks to Multinational Corporations May Have Bipartisan Support
• By Richard Phillips
There are a lot of troubling components of the tax reform packages being proposed by President-Elect Donald Trump and the House GOP, but one that especially stands out is the push to give companies a tax break on the earnings they are holding offshore. Unfortunately, proposals rewarding the nation’s most egregious tax dodging multinational corporations […]
Multinational Corporations Would Receive Half a Trillion in Tax Breaks from Trump’s Repatriation Tax Proposal
• By Richard Phillips
One of the central questions for lawmakers looking to reform the federal tax code this year is how to address the $2.5 trillion in earnings that U.S. companies are holding offshore to avoid taxes. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have supported proposals that would either require or allow companies to repatriate these earnings to the United States at a discounted tax rate. These proposals have ranged from letting companies repatriate their earnings tax-free…
Trump/Congressional Tax Holiday Would Net $514 Billion Corporate Tax Break
• By ITEP Staff
Fortune 500 corporations stand to reap $514 billion in tax breaks under President-elect Trump's proposal to allow companies to pay only a 10 percent tax rate on offshore profits. And the 10 firms that have most aggressively shifted their profits offshore would glean fully 25 percent of this massive corporate tax break, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) said today.
Congress Shouldn’t Defy Public Opinion and Good Policy by Cutting Taxes for Corporations and the Wealthy
• By Richard Phillips
Members of Congress have floated fundamental changes to the tax code for years, but last week marked a ramping up of these efforts as Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan met with President-elect Donald Trump and his advisors to discuss how to move forward with tax reform in 2017. Plans floated by the incoming […]
State of Play: The Coming Debate Over the Ryan and Trump Tax Plans
• By Richard Phillips
If the incoming Trump Administration and Republican-lead Congress have their way, fundamental changes to the tax code are afoot. The most important similarity between the Ryan and Trump tax plans are dramatic reductions in the corporate tax rate and across-the-board tax cuts whose benefits primarily flow to the richest Americans. Because of their potentially catastrophic […]
Most Americans Live in States with Variable-Rate Gas Taxes
• By Carl Davis
The federal government and many states are unable to adequately maintain the nation's transportation infrastructure in part because the gasoline taxes intended to fund infrastructure projects are often poorly designed. Thirty states and the federal government levy fixed-rate gas taxes where the tax rate does not change even when the cost of infrastructure materials rises or when drivers transition toward more fuel-efficient vehicles and pay less in gas tax. The federal government's 18.4 cent gas…
How Long Has It Been Since Your State Raised Its Gas Tax?
• By Carl Davis
Many state governments are struggling to repair and expand their transportation infrastructure because they are attempting to cover the rising cost of asphalt, machinery, and other construction materials with fixed-rate gasoline taxes that are rarely increased. The chart accompanying this brief shows (as of January 1, 2017) the number of years that have elapsed since each state's gas tax was last increased.
The Economic Progress Institute: Rhode Island Standard of Need
• By ITEP Staff
The Economic Progress Institute publishes the Rhode Island Standard of Need (RISN) to answer two fundamental questions: What is the cost of meeting basic needs for families and individuals in Rhode Island? How do state and federal work and income supports help households meet the cost of basic needs? The RISN calculates a no-frills […]
Third and State: Undocumented Immigrants Already Paying Billions in State/Local Taxes
• By ITEP Staff
Just this week, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy released a comprehensive report on the state and local tax contributions of undocumented immigrants. In the public debate about immigration policy, there are often gross inaccuracies about undocumented immigrants that are presented as facts. This important report provides state-by-state and national estimates on undocumented immigrants’ […]
Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center: Who Pays For An Increase in the PIT to 4% on Income From Wealth
• By ITEP Staff
Legislators are currently working to find the revenues necessary to fund the appropriations bill that passed the House and Senate this week. They are finding it difficult to agree on a proposal that raises genuine, recurring revenues in a way that does not make our already inequitable tax system more unfair. One constitutional way to […]
Oklahoma Policy Institute: Private school tax subsidy blurs the line between charitable gift and money laundering
• By ITEP Staff
Carl Davis is Research Director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), a non-profit, non-partisan research organization that works on federal, state, and local tax policy issues. Photo by ccPixs.com / CC BY 2.0 Photo by ccPixs.com / CC BY 3.0 When is a charitable contribution not a “donation” at all? If a […]
Oklahoma Policy Institute: The tax shift rears its head
• By ITEP Staff
Last week the Oklahoma Senate Finance Committee approved SB 977, a bill that would suspend 23 tax credits for the next two years as a way to partially address the state’s massive budget shortfall. While the bill targets numerous credits, a large majority of the impact would come from ending three important tax credits […]
Maryland Center for Economic Policy:To Support a Strong Economy, All Marylanders Must Pay Their Fair Share in Taxes
• By ITEP Staff
Maryland’s success today is due to our past public investment in good schools, a strong transportation system and other building blocks of a prosperous economy. As another “tax day” rolls around, it’s worth remembering that the income taxes we pay help make these investments possible. Cutting state income taxes or corporate taxes would undermine […]
Kentucky Center for Economic Policy: A Preview of the 2016-2018 Kentucky State Budget
• By ITEP Staff
A comprehensive preview of the upcoming two-year Kentucky state budget confirms both a massive funding gap facing the state for the next two years and a need for reinvestment in many areas post-recession. Authored by the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy (KCEP), the report notes that expected growth in state revenue the first year […]
Kentucky Center for Economic Policy: 2016 Kentucky Budget Primer
• By ITEP Staff
The Budget of the Commonwealth is a financial plan, enacted every two years by Kentucky’s General Assembly, that maps out our state’s investments in education, health, transportation, public safety, human services and other areas that build a strong state economy. As such, the budget is a statement of Kentucky’s priorities: How we invest reflects […]
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