DC’s tax system is markedly regressive. This is driven largely by the regressive impact of the city’s sales, excise, and property taxes. The personal income tax is the only effective tool that DC has available for offsetting this regressivity. In the comments below I discuss four options for fine-tuning DC’s income tax to lessen its impact on moderate- and middle-income taxpayers. I also describe four options for funding those tax cuts with policies that would increase upper-income taxpayers’ effective tax rates to be more in line with those paid by their less affluent neighbors.
Publications
-
report November 12, 2013 Personal Income Tax Reform: Improving the Fairness of Taxes in the District of Columbia
-
report June 12, 2013 Testimony: Evaluating the Motor Vehicle Fuel Tax Reforms in DC’s Bill 20-199
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Matt Gardner. I am the Executive Director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), a Washington-DC-based nonprofit research group. ITEP’s research focuses on federal and state tax policy with an emphasis on sustainability and fairness in the tax laws.
-
report March 14, 2005 ITEP Testimony Bill 16-35 Proposed Income Tax Changes
ITEP’s analysis of Bill 16-35 shows that it would impact the District’s tax system in two important ways. First, the bill would make the District’s tax system less unfair by…