Citations
ITEP's Citations Research Priorities
The Oklahoman: GOP Candidates Say Income Tax Cuts Would End Oklahoma’s Corporate Exodus
June 2, 2026
Several leading candidates in the GOP race for governor are calling to eliminate income taxes as a way to attract and retain businesses in Oklahoma.
Stateline: Republican Push To Increase Sales Taxes Would Fall Hardest on Lower-Income Residents
March 19, 2026
Lawmakers consider increasing sales taxes to offset budget cuts to property or income taxes. This will force lower- and middle-income residents, who spend a larger share of their earnings than the wealthy, to foot more of the bill for state services. Read more.
Education Week: How Do Schools Solve a Problem Like Property Taxes?
February 19, 2026
As tax season dawns, backlash to a nationwide surge in property-tax bills is spurring states to double down on proposals to diminish one of the main revenue sources for school districts. At least 10 states are pitching the end of one of schools’ chief revenue sources. Read more.
Testimony: ITEP’s Eli Byerly-Duke Discusses Oklahoma’s Child Tax Credit in Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee Hearing
• By Eli Byerly-Duke
On September 30, 2025, ITEP Policy Analyst Eli Byerly-Duke appeared before Oklahoma’s Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee to discuss potential improvements to the state’s Child Tax Credit. Check out his slide deck here. Read a press release about the hearing here.
Oklahoma Policy Institute: Lawmakers Should Choose Targeted Relief Amidst Budget Uncertainty
• By ITEP Staff
State-level budget and tax policy matters deeply for Oklahomans because it directly affects how the state can meet its obligations to our fellow residents. This includes shared services like public safety, education, transportation construction, workforce development, and other programs that help all Oklahomans thrive.
Oklahoma Policy Institute: FACT CHECK: How Would the Governor’s Proposal to Cut, Eliminate Personal Income Tax Affect Oklahoma?
• By ITEP Staff
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy has estimated how much these proposed tax cuts would impact Oklahomans, by income level:
ITEP’s Eli Byerly-Duke on Oklahoma’s Sales Tax Relief Credit
• By Eli Byerly-Duke
On October 23, 2024, ITEP Policy Analyst Eli Byerly-Duke presented to an interim study in the Oklahoma House focused on modernizing the Sales Tax Relief Credit. Click here for slides Click here for video (his remarks begin around the 1:06:00 mark)
Route Fifty: States Move to Cut Grocery Taxes
March 4, 2024
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on Tuesday signed a bill to eliminate the state’s sales tax on groceries. With the 4.5% tax gone, that leaves 11 states that impose a grocery tax—a number that is swiftly shrinking. Stitt called it the largest single-year tax cut in state history. Oklahoma will see more than $415 million less in revenue a year.
Oklahoma Policy Institute: Economic Projections for Asylum Seekers and New Immigrants in Oklahoma
• By ITEP Staff
Immigration is hardly a new social trend in the state of Oklahoma. Of the four million people living in the state, 243,000 are immigrants, or six percent of the total population, according to the 2022 American Community Survey.
Oklahoma Policy Institute: Flat Tax, Tax Triggers Would Make Oklahoma’s Tax System Less Fair, Less Adequate, and less stable
• By ITEP Staff
With less than two weeks left in the 2023 legislative session, lawmakers have very little time remaining to reach agreement on, reveal, and adopt the Fiscal Year 2024 state budget. Bills that would change tax policy are typically unveiled as part of the budget package. Though they have not yet been introduced, this year’s budget […]
Oklahoma Policy Institute: Tax Proposals This Session Fail to Deliver Inflation Relief, Jeopardize State’s Long-term Fiscal Health
• By ITEP Staff
With $10.8 billion in recurring revenue and at least $1.6 billion in one-time funds, the Oklahoma Legislature has significant fiscal decisions to make this session. Oklahoma leaders have repeatedly stated their intentions, including House Speaker Charles McCall who wants to provide “inflation relief” and Gov. Kevin Stitt who heralds a commitment to “fiscal discipline.” However, most of […]
Oklahoma Policy Institute: The Needs of Everyday Oklahomans Outweigh Tax Cuts that Benefit the Wealthy
• By ITEP Staff
As Oklahoma’s 2023 legislative session begins, the perennial push for tax cuts that would shrink state revenue will likely return. In 2022, leaders of the Oklahoma House of Representatives championed tax cuts – primarily focusing on reducing the personal income tax, the corporate income tax, and the sales tax on groceries. Ultimately, the legislative session ended without any major […]
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
Oklahoma Policy Institute: Strengthening the Grocery Tax Credit Would Provide Fiscally Smart Tax Relief to Working Oklahomans
• By ITEP Staff
Oklahoma can effectively eliminate the state and local sales tax on groceries for most low-income families by strengthening the Sales Tax Relief Credit. At a time when many Oklahomans are struggling to put food on the table and are at risk of eviction, a more robust Sales Tax Relief Credit can help put money back into the pockets […]
Bloomberg: SALT Debate Forces Rich Americans to Confront Widening Tax Gap
December 10, 2021
Lawmakers in Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio and Oklahoma have also approved cuts to their top personal income tax going into effect either this year or in future years. “There are states moving in different directions,” said Carl Davis, research director at the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. […]
Oklahoma Policy Institute: A Budget and Tax Roadmap for Oklahoma
• By ITEP Staff
A more just tax system will level the playing field for all Oklahomans, providing more opportunity to save and build wealth. It will also benefit the economy, as equal opportunity for individuals expands the economy as a whole. The state must continue providing and expanding shared services that are often lifelines for low-income individuals, but […]
Anchorage Daily News: As Alaska’s Budget Uproar Rolls on, a Top Dunleavy Adviser Has Seen It Before
July 24, 2019
Arduin, Laffer & Moore has been criticized by economists for what some see as less than rigorous methods. One Oklahoma study on eliminating the state’s personal income tax produced by the firm was trashed as not “meeting professional standards” and including “biased and greatly exaggerated estimates” by University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University economists. […]
Wyo File: Why Are We Footing the Bill for Billionaires?
November 16, 2018
he question, then, will be: Who pays? That question — “Who pays?” — is also at the center of a report released last month by the Washington, D.C.-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The report, Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States, looks at the different tax rates […]
The Journal Record: Prosperity Policy: An Upside-down Tax System
• By ITEP Staff
A modestly progressive income tax slightly offsets our regressive sales taxes. But Oklahoma lawmakers cut our top income tax rate by nearly 25 percent since 2004, further tipping the scales to the wealthiest households. Then while grappling with massive budget shortfalls caused in part by these tax cuts, lawmakers took aim at measures that primarily benefit low- and middle-income working families by making the state Earned Income Tax Credit non-refundable and freezing the state standard…
Enid News & Eagle: A Low Tax State for Only Some Oklahomans
• By ITEP Staff
While Oklahoma has a reputation as a low tax state, poor and middle-income Oklahomans are actually paying a greater share of their income in taxes than the national average, while the richest 5 percent of households — with annual incomes of $194,500 or more — pay less.
Tulsa World: Political Notebook: Report Says Oklahoma’s State and Local Taxes Among the Most Regressive in the Nation
• By ITEP Staff
Oklahoma’s state and local taxes are among the most regressive in the country, according to a report released last week by the Institute on Taxation and Policy.
Oklahoma Policy Institute: New Analysis: Low-income Taxpayers in Oklahoma Pay More than Twice the Tax Rate Paid by the Richest Oklahomans
• By ITEP Staff
While Oklahoma has a reputation as a low tax state, poor and middle-income Oklahomans are actually paying a greater share of their income in taxes than the national average, while the richest 5 percent of households — with annual incomes of $194,500 or more — pay less.
Fox Business: Higher State Taxes, Not OPEC, Boosting Gas Prices
July 5, 2018
In July, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee were among seven states that raised their gas taxes Opens a New Window. . At least 27 states have raised or updated their gas taxes since 2013, according to a report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Opens a New Window. . California – where drivers pay some […]
The Nation: Will Red-State Protests Spark Electoral Change?
July 5, 2018
State lawmakers came “out of the gate in 2011 with a pretty regressive, large-scale tax-cut plan,” said Meg Wiehe, deputy director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), a nonprofit, tax-focused research group. Led by Governor Fallin, the Oklahoma GOP wanted to scrap the income tax entirely—a plan that was the brainchild of […]
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