Citations
ITEP's Citations Research Priorities
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: Mississippi Moves to Eliminate Income Tax, Deepening Inequality and Threatening Public Services
April 25, 2025 • By ITEP Staff
Mississippi policymakers have taken one of the most extreme steps in state tax policy in recent years: enacting a law that will gradually phase out the state’s personal income tax. Signed by Gov. Tate Reeves in March, the move begins the final stage of a years-long push to dismantle a key pillar of the state’s tax system, which has long helped fund education, health care, infrastructure, and other core services.
Associated Press: Mississippi and Kentucky Aim to End Personal Income Taxes
April 6, 2025
About 45 years have passed since a U.S. state last eliminated its income tax on wages and salaries. But with recent actions in Mississippi and Kentucky, two states now are on a path to do so, if their economies keep growing. Read more.
Clarion Ledger: Mississippi Governor Signs Income Tax Elimination Bill. How Are You Affected?
March 28, 2025
With a stroke of a pen, and a few light-hearted jokes, the Build Up Mississippi Act, the largest total tax cut in state history was signed into law on March 27.
Bloomberg Tax: Flat Income Tax Revival Draws Sharply Mixed Reviews (Podcast)
June 14, 2022
With cash cushions plump with federal pandemic relief dollars and a surge in tax revenues, state legislatures across the country have cut taxes aggressively this year. But several states went further, converting their tiered income tax structures to flat-rate systems. Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, and Mississippi have committed to the flat tax in recent weeks, and […]
Bloomberg: Did You Pay Your ‘Fair Share’ of Federal Income Tax This Year?
March 31, 2022
And according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the impact would have a definite geographic tilt. The states where more than 40% of residents would face tax increases are largely in the South, including Mississippi, West Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Georgia, New Mexico, South Carolina, and Florida. read more
Pennsylvania Capital Star: GOP plan would be a tax hike for 35% of Pa. residents
March 9, 2022
The share of households facing tax hikes would vary across states, according to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, ranging from a low of about 24 percent in Washington State to high of roughly 50 percent in Mississippi, which is among the poorest states in the country. Read more
American Prospect: The Year of the Tax Cut
February 17, 2022
State lawmakers are also pointing to substantial, but temporary, budget surpluses to justify tax cuts, but these surpluses are “deceptive and fleeting,” says Neva Butkus of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), a Washington think tank. Twenty-three states lowered their revenue estimates compared to pre-pandemic levels, and 19 states counted delayed fiscal year […]
One Voice: Eliminating Individual Income Tax is Bad for Mississippi
February 7, 2022 • By ITEP Staff
House Bill 531 would eliminate the state individual income tax. Eliminating the income tax is bad for Mississippi, especially the state’s working families, communities of color, and retirees. While some lawmakers are suggesting that Mississippi’s revenue system is sound enough to support this tax cut, due to the current surplus, this couldn’t be further from […]
Mississippi Today: Mississippi tax laws place higher burden on people of color
August 19, 2021
“Black households pay an average of 8.7% of their income in state and local tax while Hispanic families pay 9.1%,” according to a recently released study by non-profit One Voice, based on data compiled by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “Those rates are significantly above the statewide average tax rate of 8.4% and […]
One Voice: Who Pays, Mississippi? An Overview of State Tax Policy and Racial Equity Impacts
August 17, 2021 • By ITEP Staff
Historic and current injustices, both in public policy and in society more broadly, have resulted in vast disparities in income across race and ethnicity in Mississippi. State and local tax codes are not the sole contributors to, nor will they be the sole solution to, racial economic inequities. However, the state’s tax system is playing […]
Mississippi Today: Mississippi could help long-neglected poor with Rescue Plan payments
May 16, 2021
For instance, those earning less than $16,100 pay 10.2% of their income on state and local taxes, primarily because of Mississippi’s high sales tax rate, which includes the 7% tax on groceries. Those in the middle — earning between $43,000 and $77,500 pay — pay 9.2% of their income on state and local taxes, while […]
Bloomberg: N.Y., New Jersey, California Hit Hardest by Biden Tax Changes
April 29, 2021
President Joe Biden’s plan to ramp up the income tax rate and capital gains tax rate as part of a $1.8 trillion stimulus plan would hit high-tax states like New York and California the hardest, while New Mexico and Mississippi would be least affected, according to research from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. […]
Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger: Eliminating state income tax would hurt Mississippi working families, widen inequities
March 25, 2021
This is because individual income taxes are the only major tax in which the state’s highest-income earners pay a larger percentage of their income in taxes than the state’s lower-income earners. Not surprisingly, then, the state’s wealthiest households stand to gain the most from eliminating the tax. On average, Mississippians in the lowest 20% of […]
One Voice Mississippi: Bill Analysis: House Bill 1439: Tax Proposal Moves State Away from a Better, More Equitable Mississippi
March 16, 2021 • By ITEP Staff
Mississippi’s House of Representatives recently passed House Bill 1439 (“the Mississippi Tax Freedom Act of 2021”). The House passed the 300-page bill less than 24 hours after they introduced it with little debate and no fiscal note. The plan revives the recurring attempts of some lawmakers to cut state income taxes, but does much more. […]
Mississippi Today: Study: House Tax Proposal Increases Burden on Poor Mississippians
March 9, 2021
The bottom 60% of Mississippi’s income earners would be paying more taxes under legislation that has passed the House while the top 40% would be paying less, according to an analysis conducted by a Washington, D.C.-based policy think tank. A person in the top 1% with average income of $924,000 would pay $28,610 less in […]
WJTV: Experts discuss bill that would eliminate Mississippi’s state income tax
February 26, 2021
According to data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), the proposal to increase the state’s sales tax rate to 9.5 percent would give Mississippians the highest sales tax in the country. Meg Wiehe, deputy executive director of ITEP, was among those who analyzed the data. “By increasing the rate to 9.5 percent […]
South Strong: Racial Equity and Taxes in Southern States
August 26, 2020 • By Amy Hanauer, Meg Wiehe
Southern states have a particularly egregious record on tax equity, rooted partly in racism. Lawmakers baked some of the most egregious and anti-democratic tax policies into southern state constitutions, such as supermajority requirements to raise taxes in Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana, income tax rate caps in North Carolina and Georgia, and the recent elimination of […]
Reuters: Illinois Budget Debate Raises Key Questions on Taxing Retirement Income
February 28, 2019
But the policies of various states are all over the map. Data provided by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows that 11 states tax some portion of Social Security benefits, usually mirroring the federal formula. Many others tax pensions and tax-deferred accounts, although some have exemptions that protect lower-income, public sector workers and […]
Politifact: The Facts Behind Trump’s Jabs at Amazon on Taxes, USPS and Lost Retail Jobs
March 30, 2018
Amazon paid $957 million in income tax in 2017, according to regulatory filings. Amazon paid nothing in federal taxes this year thanks to tax credits and, in large part, Trump’s new tax law. But the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that Amazon is either not collecting local taxes or is charging a lower […]
Fortune: President Trump Claims Amazon Pays “Little or No Taxes.” Here’s Where He’s Wrong
March 30, 2018
Where Trump is correct: Amazon doesn’t collect taxes on behalf of third-party vendors, and it still may not collect some local taxes, giving it an advantage over some traditional retailers, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a think tank. According to an analysis from the ITEP, the gap between the tax rate […]
Bloomberg Law: Trump’s Amazon Tweet Comes at Eventful Time for State-Local Taxes
March 30, 2018
Meanwhile, Amazon may not be paying its share of local sales taxes. A report released March 26 by the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy said Amazon either doesn’t collect and remit local sales tax or is charging a lower sales tax rate than traditional retailers in seven states: Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, […]
Dallas Morning News: Texas Was Tougher Than Other States in Dealing with Amazon on Sales Taxes
March 30, 2018
When a Dallas resident or shopper in College Station or Lubbock makes a purchase from Amazon or any other online retailer with a physical presence in Texas such as Wayfair and RH.com, the state gets its 6.25 percent. The cities get their local sales taxes too. In Dallas, that’s an additional 2 percent for a […]
Seattle Times: As Amazon steps up tax collections, some cities are left out
March 27, 2018
Thanks in part to a series of deals with state governments in recent years, Amazon is collecting sales tax in every state that has one. But those deals do not always extend to taxes assessed by local governments. The company still is not collecting sales taxes in dozens of cities, including Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Cedar […]
Bloomberg BNA: Tax Breaks Plentiful for Second Amazon HQ Even Without Bids
March 27, 2018
Amazon also benefits at the state and local level when it comes to sales tax, according to a report released March 26 by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy based in Washington, D.C. In seven states—Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania—Amazon is either not collecting local taxes or charging a lower […]
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