1,134 posts
Latest Kansas Tax Bill Carries $680 Million Price Tag and Raises Taxes on Those Least Able to Pay
• By Meg Wiehe
A joint House-Senate conference committ ee is poised to approve a revised version of the tax bill recently sent to the Governor by the House of Representatives. An Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) analysis of the agreed-upon tax bill shows that it would reduce state tax collections by about $680 million a year, […]
Three Strategies for Making Enacted Kansas Tax Plan Less Unfair and Less Costly
• By Meg Wiehe
Yesterday, the Kansas House of Representatives passed, and sent to Governor Sam Brownback, a tax plan, Senate Substitute for House Bill 2117, that had been previously ratified by the state Senate. A number of lawmakers in both houses have expressed dismay at the projected long-term cost of the bill, and the governor has indicated that […]
Kansas Tax Bill Would Cost $600 Million a Year While Hiking Taxes on Low-Income Families
• By Meg Wiehe
Kansas legislators are set to vote on a tax bill recently approved by a joint House-Senate conference committee. An ITEP analysis of the agreed-upon tax bill shows that it would reduce state tax collections by close to $600 million a year, while actually increasing taxes on many low- and middle-income Kansans. The conference committee plan […]
How Federal Tax Reform Can Help or Hurt State and Local Governments
• By Matthew Gardner
Federal tax reform can affect state and local taxes in several ways. The federal government can create, repeal or change tax expenditures in a way that is passed on to the states because virtually every state has tax rules linked to the federal rules. The federal government can subsidize state and local governments’ ability to […]
Regarding Proposals to Increase Taxes on Upper-Income Rhode Islanders
• By Meg Wiehe
My testimony focuses in general on the slate of bills in front of the committee today that would raise taxes on wealthy Rhode Islanders. These bills present Rhode Island policymakers sensible revenue-raising options that could be used to either prevent deeper spending cuts or restore spending to vital public investments such as education, health care, […]
Repealing Estate Tax Will Not Create An Economic Boom
• By Carl Davis
Since Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam proposed reducing the state’s estate tax in February, Tennessee lawmakers have shown increasing interest in this idea. Recently, a House subcommittee one-upped the governor by approving a bill that would gradually repeal the tax outright. House Speaker Beth Harwell explained this move by noting that “[w]e know this tax drives […]
Tax Plans Put Kansas on Road Away from Fair & Adequate Tax Reform
• By Meg Wiehe
Both the House and Senate have recently passed bills, loosely modeled on the Governor’s plan, that would reduce income tax rates, but their plans are different in very important ways. This ITEP report assesses the impact of the House and Senate plans on state revenues and tax fairness, and finds that each of these plans […]
Idaho House Tax Plan Stacked In Favor of the Wealthy
• By Carl Davis
Most Tax Cuts Flow to the Top 1%, Vast Majority of Idahoans Receive No Benefit An income tax cut recently passed by the Idaho House of Representatives, and backed by Governor Butch Otter, would reduce state revenues by over $35 million a year while benefitting only a small fraction of the wealthiest Idahoans. Four out […]
Alaska Senate State Affairs Committee Regarding SB 29, The Alaska Tax Break Transparency Act
• By Carl Davis
My testimony today deals with Senate Bill 29, which would take an important first step toward achieving these goals by requiring regular scrutiny of Alaska “tax expenditures”—that is, the various tax credits, deductions, exemptions, and other breaks that reduce Alaska tax revenue. The basic insight behind the idea of “tax expenditures” is that a law […]
Testimony on Reinstating Maryland’s “Millionaires’ Tax”
• By Carl Davis
SB 249 would permanently reinstate the “millionaires’ tax” that expired at the end of 2010. This testimony emphasizes that the “millionaires’ tax” makes Maryland’s tax system at least somewhat less unfair than it otherwise would be; that reinstating the tax would result in a substantial federal tax cut for upper-income Marylanders; and that claims about […]
Arthur Laffer Regression Analysis is Fundamentally Flawed, Offers No Support for Economic Growth Claims
• By Carl Davis
A November 2011 report from the Oklahoma Council for Public Affairs (OCPA) in partnership with Arduin, Laffer & Moore, a consulting group headed by Arthur Laffer, explains the method that Laffer has been using to make the case that tax cuts lead to economic growth. The results he offers appear impressive, but his methods are […]
“High Rate” Income Tax States Are Outperforming No-Tax States
• By Carl Davis
Don’t Be Fooled by Junk Economics With the economy lagging, lawmakers seeking to reduce or eliminate state personal income taxes are touting their proposals as tools for boosting economic growth. Of particular note are the governors of Kansas and Oklahoma, both of whom justified income tax repeal in their State of the State speeches by […]
Kansas Governor Tax Proposal: Wealthy Kansans Pay Less, Poor and Middle-Income Kansans Pay More
• By Meg Wiehe
Kansas Governor Sam Brownback unveiled his long anticipated tax plan last week. Sweeping changes to reduce the state’s reliance on its progressive personal income tax are at the core of the proposal. The plan cuts income tax rates, eliminates a variety of income tax deductions and credits, and makes permanent a temporary sales tax rate […]
Building a Better Gas Tax
• By Carl Davis
State gas taxes are currently levied in every state, and are the most important source of transportation revenue under the control of state lawmakers. In recent years, however, state gas taxes have fallen dramatically relative to the rising cost of asphalt, concrete, labor, and everything else that goes into maintaining a transportation network. The results […]
Corporate Tax Dodging In the Fifty States, 2008-2010
• By Matthew Gardner
In October, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley suggested that gradually repealing the state’s corporate income tax should be a priority for lawmakers in 2012. Haley’s idea was alarming, but hardly surprising: in the past year, governors in Arizona and Florida have proposed similar plans, and lawmakers in a number of other states have moved to […]
Corporate Taxpayers & Corporate Tax Dodgers
• By Matthew Gardner
Earlier this year, Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett made headlines by publicly decrying the stark inequity between his own effective federal tax rate (about 17 percent, by his estimate) and that of his secretary (about 30 percent). The resulting media firestorm has drawn welcome attention to unfair tax breaks that allow the richest Americans to […]
Costs of Personal Income Tax Repeal in Kansas
• By Meg Wiehe
Given the challenging fiscal climate facing Kansas, the proposed income tax plan should be thought of not simply as a tax cut but as a tax swap. News reports confirm our expectation that revenues from income taxes would be at least partially replaced by sales and property taxes under the Governor’s plan. The graphic below […]
Tax Expenditures: Spending By Another Name
• By Carl Davis
Lawmakers often provide targeted tax cuts to groups of individuals or corporations in the form of special tax breaks--including exemptions, deductions, exclusions, credits, deferrals, and preferential tax rates. These tax breaks have long been called "tax expenditures" because they are essentially government spending programs that happen to be administered through the tax code. However, tax expenditures are usually less visible than other types of public spending and are therefore harder for policymakers and the public…
Cigarette Taxes: Issues and Options
• By Meg Wiehe
Efforts to increase sales and income taxes usually face some opposition. Yet in many states, lawmakers have been able to agree on one approach to revenue-raising: the cigarette tax. In the past several years nearly every state has enacted a cigarette tax increase to help fund health care, discourage smoking, or to help balance state budgets. This policy brief looks at the advantages and disadvantages of cigarette taxes, and cigarette tax hikes, as a state…
Uncertain Benefits, Hidden Costs: The Perils of State-Sponsored Gambling
• By Meg Wiehe
The recent fiscal downturn forced cash-strapped, tax-averse state lawmakers to seek unconventional revenue-raising alternatives, for additional revenue-raising opportunities outside of the income, sales and property taxes that form the backbone of most state tax systems. One of the most popular alternatives to those major revenue sources is state sponsored gambling. As this policy brief points out, however, gambling revenues are rarely as lucrative, or as long-lasting, as supporters claim.
State Tax Codes As Poverty Fighting Tools (2011)
• By Meg Wiehe
This report presents a comprehensive view of anti-poverty tax policy decisions made in the states in 2011 and offers recommendations every state should consider to help families rise out of poverty. States can jump-start their anti-poverty efforts by enacting one or more of four proven and effective tax reforms: refundable state Earned Income Tax Credits, […]
Rewarding Work Through Earned Income Tax Credits
• By Meg Wiehe
Low-wage workers often face a dual challenge as they struggle to make ends meet. In many instances, the wages they earn are insufficient to encourage additional hours of work or long-term attachment to the labor force. At the same time, most state and local tax systems impose greater responsibilities on poor families than on wealthy ones, making it even harder for low-wage workers to move above the poverty line and achieve meaningful economic security. The…
State Income Taxes and Older Adults
• By Meg Wiehe
State governments provide a wide array of tax breaks for their elderly residents. Almost every state levying an income tax now sensibly allows some form of income tax exemption or credit for its over-65 citizens that is unavailable to non-elderly taxpayers. But many states have enacted poorly-targeted, unnecessarily expensive elderly income tax breaks that make state tax systems less sustainable and less fair. This policy brief surveys approaches to elderly income tax relief and suggests…
State Treatment of Itemized Deductions
• By Meg Wiehe
In 2011, thirty one states and the District of Columbia allow a group of income tax breaks known as "itemized deductions." Itemized deductions are designed to help defray a wide variety of personal expenditures that affect a taxpayer's ability to pay taxes, including charitable contributions, extraordinary medical expenses, mortgage interest payments and state and local taxes. But, these deductions cost states billions of dollars a year while providing little or no benefit to the middle-…
Property Tax Circuit Breakers
• By Meg Wiehe
State lawmakers seeking to enact residential property tax relief have two broad options: across-the-board tax cuts for taxpayers at all income levels, such as a homestead exemption or a tax cap, and targeted tax breaks that are given only to particular groups of low-income and middle-income taxpayers. One increasingly popular type of targeted property tax relief program is called a "circuit breaker" because it protects taxpayers from a property tax "overload" just like an electric…
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