Blog - State Policy
State Rundown 4/29: State Responses and Federal Aid Could Be Among “May Flowers” to Come
April 29, 2020 • By ITEP Staff
April has brought relentless showers of troublesome tax and budget news as the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on communities and the public services and institutions that both support and depend on them. There is hope, however, that these troubles have opened the eyes of policymakers and that May will bring more clarity and strong action in the form of federal fiscal relief as well as home-grown state and local responses.
A bipartisan group of governors and senators from Louisiana to Maryland to Ohio have called for at least $500 billion in state and local fiscal relief. They also need specific help with testing, protective equipment, unemployment costs, Medicaid costs, social services, education and infrastructure. States can’t be on their own as they address the double whammy of plunging revenue and skyrocketing needs.
Sales Tax Policy in a Pandemic: Exemptions for Digital Goods and Services Are More Outdated Than Ever
April 29, 2020 • By Estefan Hernandez Escoto
Many states are making the decline in sales tax collection worse by failing to apply their sales taxes to digital goods (such as downloads of music, movies, or software) and services (such as digital streaming). A state that taxes movie theater tickets but not digital streaming, for instance, is needlessly hastening the decline of its own sales tax.
In different ways, Earth Day and the COVID-19 pandemic convey a similar lesson: people around the world face shared struggles and disparate impacts, which they must work together to overcome through both emergency action and systemic change. In keeping with that lesson, state fiscal policy news this week was strikingly similar around the country, as states take account of the major threat posed by the pandemic to their budgets and attempt to grapple with its disproportionate impacts on communities of color and low-income families.
The full effect of the coronavirus pandemic on state revenue streams remains largely unknown. One key policy option is to reevaluate recent misguided tax cuts—particularly those that have not yet taken full effect and will add to growing revenue shortfalls in the coming years.
Morally and Economically, Including Undocumented Immigrants Is the Right Thing to Do
April 17, 2020 • By ITEP Staff
Undocumented immigrants pay taxes and play an integral part in the social and economic welfare of our country, yet Congress left them almost entirely out of the CARES Act package. Fortunately, immigrants, workers and their allies are helping policymakers advance better policy approaches.
State Rundown 4/15: Tax Day Delayed but Other Important Work Accelerated
April 15, 2020 • By ITEP Staff
April 15 is traditionally the day federal and state income taxes are due, but like so much else, Tax Day is on hold for the time being. Meanwhile the pandemic’s disastrous and uneven effects on communities and shared institutions are decidedly not suspended. But nor are the efforts of individuals, advocates, and policymakers to develop solutions to respond to the immediate crisis while also building better systems going forward. ITEP’s recommendations for state tax policy responses are now available here, and this week’s Rundown includes experiences and perspectives on paths forward from around the country.
State Rundown 4/9: Pandemic’s Fiscal Effects Slowly Coming into Focus
April 9, 2020 • By ITEP Staff
The COVID-19 pandemic continued this week to wreak havoc on lives and communities around the world. The fiscal fallout of the virus in the states is growing as well, and beginning this week to come into sharper focus. This week’s Rundown brings together what we know of that slowly clarifying picture and how states are responding so far.
State Rundown 4/3: States Welcome Federal Aid, Seek Further Solutions
April 3, 2020 • By ITEP Staff
States and families got good news this week as Congress came together to pass major aid to help during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. But that bright spot came amid an onslaught of very difficult news about the public health crisis and the economic and fiscal fallout accompanying it. This week’s Rundown brings you the latest on these developments and state and local responses to them.
Federal Relief Bill Doesn’t Go Far Enough: Q&A with Meg Wiehe
April 2, 2020 • By ITEP Staff, Meg Wiehe, Stephanie Clegg
The final version of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act enacted last week included rebate provisions that will reach most low-, moderate- and middle-income adults and children, but not everyone. Meg Wiehe sits down for a Q&A to discuss who benefits from the rebate provision, who is excluded and how states can respond to support communities.
Sales Taxes and Social Distancing: State and Local Governments May Face Their Steepest Sales Tax Decline Ever
April 2, 2020 • By Carl Davis, ITEP Staff, Meg Wiehe
One pressing question is what will an economic downturn in which consumers are anxious, facing job loss, or simply spending their time sheltering in place and not spending money in typical ways, mean for states’ ability to raise revenue?
Temporarily modifying the structure of the EITC to reflect the realities of our current economy could provide a vital lifeline to low-income workers who have seen their incomes disappear during this crisis. What follows are a few such ideas which could be implemented at either the federal or state levels, or both.
State Rundown 3/26: Pandemic’s Health and Fiscal Fallout Continues to Grow
March 26, 2020 • By ITEP Staff
This week’s Rundown brings you the most useful reading and resources about how states are affected by and responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. These include: landing pages for the most up-to-date lists of state policy responses; ITEP’s own materials on state policy options and the federal response bills; insights on how a race-forward approach can improve these efforts at all levels; updates on state fiscal troubles and legislative postponements; and the developing picture of which states and communities could be affected more than others.
State Rundown 3/19: Spring Is Here but States Brace for Long Winter
March 19, 2020 • By ITEP Staff
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt more and more aspects of life and cause greater and greater harms to public health and the economy, information is changing by the hour. State policymakers, if they are even able to convene, are wholly focused on how to respond to the crisis. The pandemic is certain to pose a series of fiscal challenges for states and their economies, and this week’s Rundown focuses on the most helpful resources and the latest state-by-state updates available.
It’s Time for Some State Fiscal Policy Triage
March 18, 2020 • By Carl Davis, Dylan Grundman O'Neill, ITEP Staff
The COVID-19 novel coronavirus’s effects on public health and economies at all scales are creating a daunting situation for state budgets as well. Lawmakers can choose and prioritize their responses through a straightforward approach similar to that taken by health professionals: marshal and reinforce available resources, triage response options to prioritize the most vital services and most vulnerable people, and enact or strengthen the policies that will help address longer-term issues as well as immediate emergencies.
State Rundown 3/11: Georgia Bucks Trend of Cautious Policymaking Amid Crises
March 11, 2020 • By ITEP Staff
With all eyes on the potential effects of the oil price war and COVID-19 coronavirus on lives, communities, and economies, Georgia House lawmakers this week crammed through a regressive and costly tax cut for the rich with essentially no debate, information, or transparency. Most states are proceeding much more responsibly, assessing the ramifications for their service provision needs and revenues to fund those needs.
Alaska’s tax system underwent major changes in the 1970s when oil was found at Prudhoe Bay. Lawmakers repealed the state’s personal income tax (making Alaska the only state ever to do so) and began balancing the state’s budget primarily with oil tax and royalty revenue instead. But as oil prices and production levels have declined, a yawning gap has opened between state revenues and the cost of providing vital public services.
State Rundown 3/4: Sun Shining on Progressive Tax Efforts This Week
March 4, 2020 • By ITEP Staff
Wisconsin’s expansion of a capital gains tax break for high-income households represents a dark spot on this week’s state fiscal news, and the growing threat of COVID-19 is casting an ominous shadow over all of it, but otherwise the picture is pleasantly sunny, featuring small steps forward for sound, progressive tax policy. An initiative to create a graduated income tax in Illinois, for example, got a vote of confidence from a major ratings agency, while a similar effort went public in Michigan and two progressive income tax improvements were debated in Rhode Island. Gas tax updates made encouraging progress in…
This weekend’s Leap Day should be a welcome extra day for state lawmakers, advocates, and observers who care about tax and budget policy, as there is an overflow of proposals and information to digest. Most importantly, as emphasized in our “What We’re Reading” section, there are never enough days in a month to do justice to the importance of Black History Month and Black Futures Month. In state-specific debates, Oregon and Washington leaders are hoping to take a leap forward in raising funds for homelessness and housing affordability measures. Lawmakers in West Virginia and Wisconsin could use a day to…
State Rundown 2/20: Property Taxes and School Finance Take Center Stage
February 20, 2020 • By ITEP Staff
Property taxes and education funding are a major focus in state fiscal debates this week. California voters will soon vote on borrowing billions of dollars to fill just part of the funding hole created in large part by 1978’s anti-property-tax Proposition 13. Nebraska lawmakers are debating major school finance changes that some fear will create similar long-term fiscal issues. And Idaho and South Dakota leaders are looking to avoid that fate by reducing property taxes in ways that will target the families who most need the help. Meanwhile, Arkansas, Nevada, and New Hampshire are taking close looks at their transportation…
State Rundown 2/13: What’s Trendy in State Tax Debates This Year
February 13, 2020 • By ITEP Staff
We wrote earlier this week about Trends We’re Watching in 2020, and this week’s Rundown includes news on several of those trends. Maine lawmakers are considering a refundable credit for caregivers. Efforts to tax high-income households made news in Maryland, Oregon, and Washington. Grocery taxes are receiving scrutiny in Alabama, Idaho, and Tennessee. Tax cuts or shifts are being discussed in Arizona, Nebraska, and West Virginia. And Arizona, Maryland, and Nevada continue to seek funding solutions for K-12 education as Alaska and Virginia do the same for transportation infrastructure.
State lawmakers have plenty to keep them busy on the tax policy front in 2020. Encouraging trends we’re watching this year include opportunities to enact and enhance refundable tax credits and increase the tax contributions of high-income households, each of which would improve tax equity and help to reduce income inequality.
States Can Make Their Tax Systems Less Regressive by Reforming or Repealing Itemized Deductions
February 5, 2020 • By Carl Davis
Itemized deductions are problematic tax subsidies that need to close. The mortgage interest deduction, for instance, is often lauded as a way to help middle-class families afford homes and charitable deductions are touted as incentivizing gifts to charitable organizations. But the dirty little secret is that itemized deductions primarily benefit higher-income households while largely failing to achieve their purported goals.
State Rundown 1/30: Flip-Flops and Steady Marches in State Tax Debates
January 30, 2020 • By ITEP Staff
State tax and budget debates can turn on a dime sometimes, as in Utah this past week, where lawmakers unanimously repealed a tax package they had just approved in a special session last month. Delaware lawmakers are hoping to avoid the similarly abrupt end to their last effort to improve their Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) by crafting a bill that Gov. John Carney will have no reason to unexpectedly veto as he did two years ago. But at other times, these debates just can’t change fast enough, as in New Hampshire and Virginia, where leaders are searching for revenue to address long-standing transportation needs, and in Hawaii, Nebraska, and North Carolina, where education funding issues remain painfully unresolved.
A new IRS proposal could once again allow wealthy business owners to use state charitable tax credits–including tax credits for donating to support private and religious K-12 schools–to dodge the federal government’s $10,000 cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions.
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