States
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media mention June 17, 2015 Kansas City Star: TheChat: Kansas Evaluates Impact of the Raucous 2015 Session
The fallout from the 2015 session continues. ▪ “It’s clearly a cautionary tale for other states to have in mind.” — Matthew Gardner, executive director of the left-leaning Institute on… -
media mention June 17, 2015 KCTV Kansas City: Kansas Governor Says Deficit Plan Is Not a Tax Increase
Brownback, his top aides and their legislative allies have argued repeatedly that cuts in income tax rates benefited all classes of taxpayers. The governor noted that one provision of this… -
media mention June 17, 2015 KSHB Kansas City: Social Service Agencies Worry About Potential Effects of Kansas Budget
According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the poorest 40 percent of Kansans will pay an average of $131 more in taxes because of the new budget. According… -
ITEP Work in Action June 16, 2015 Local Progress: Progressive Policies for Raising Municipal Revenue
This report lays out a set of policy and political interventions that cities, regions, and states can make to increase municipal revenue and to make their collections more progressive. Cities… -
media mention June 15, 2015 New York Times: Kansas Tax Cutting Model Tarnished by Sales Tax Increase
Matthew Gardner, executive director of the left-leaning, Washington-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy said Kansas’ experience makes it more difficult for other states to pursue aggressive income tax cuts.… -
media mention June 15, 2015 Columbus Dispatch: Ohio’s Top Earners Benefit More From Senate’s Tax Plan Than House’s, Analysis Says
The report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy on behalf of liberal research group Policy Matters Ohio estimates that the lowest 40 percent of Ohio income earners would… -
media mention June 15, 2015 Star Tribune: Kansas Lawmakers Pass Plan to Boost Sales, Cigarette Taxes After Brownback’s Budget Warnings
“TOPEKA, Kan. — Republican legislators in Kansas narrowly approved tax increases Friday, responding to pleas from their leaders and a warning from GOP Gov. Sam Brownback’s aides about draconian spending… -
media mention June 15, 2015 Daily Record: Letter: State’s Tax Structure Hits the Poor the Hardest
Why did the recession have such a damaging effect on the state budget? Because, almost uniquely in the country, most of our state’s revenue comes from various kinds of sales… -
media mention June 15, 2015 The Washington Post: How Kansas Keeps Making Life Harder for the Poor
Poor families in Kansas would pay even more in taxes under a bill the state House passed Friday. Matt Gardner, the executive director of the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and… -
media mention June 12, 2015 Salon: Sam Brownback Guts Kansas Even More: This Is Life Under America’s Worst Republican Governor
Brownback’s well-paid tax consultant, the legendary economist Laffer, promised Kansans that the cuts would pay for themselves in supercharged economic growth. At the time, a report from the Institute on… -
media mention June 9, 2015 Columbus Dispatch: Kasich Flirts With Steve Forbes’ Flat Tax
“If you ask its advocates why it’s a good idea, one of the first things they’ll say is it’s a simpler way to tax,” said Matt Gardner, executive director of… -
media mention June 9, 2015 The News-Herald: Amazon’s Ohio Sales Tax Collection Seen As Way To ‘Level Playing Field,’ Close Tax Loophole
Some states, however, have decided not to wait for the federal government to make the change. So far, 10 states have taken their own limited steps to expand the number… -
media mention June 9, 2015 Dayton Daily News: Kasich Flirts With Flat Tax
“If you ask its advocates why it’s a good idea, one of the first things they’ll say is it’s a simpler way to tax,” said Matt Gardner, executive director of… -
media mention June 5, 2015 Chicagoist: Addressing Property Taxes And Gentrification Along The 606
Most gentrification narratives go vaguely like this: hipsters come to a neighborhood and open up fancy businesses and build fancy stuff and the original residents get pushed out. But often… -
media mention June 3, 2015 Hutchinson News: Brownback’s Latest Tax Plan Appears To Be More Of Same
Brownback proposed the state eliminate income taxes for 388,000 poor residents and raise taxes for business owners. Sounds good. But the nonpartisan Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy found that… -
media mention June 3, 2015 WNPR: Hold On: Why Don’t Corporations in Connecticut Pay (More) Tax?
Matt Gardner is director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, and he explained it this way: “If you think it’s wrong for companies to be able to shift… -
report May 6, 2015 Issues with Taxing Marijuana at the State Level
Read as a PDF. Table of Contents Introduction Why Tax Marijuana? Designing a State Tax on Marijuana How Much Revenue Would Marijuana Legalization Generate for States Factors that Could Negatively… -
report April 15, 2015 Undocumented Immigrants’ State & Local Tax Contributions (2015)
This report was updated February 2016 Read as a PDF. (Includes Full Appendix of State-by-State Data) Report Landing Page In the public debates over federal immigration reform, sufficient and accurate information… -
brief March 23, 2015 State Tax Preferences for Elderly Taxpayers
State governments provide a wide array of tax breaks for their elderly residents. Almost every state that levies an income tax now allows some form of income tax exemption or credit for citizens over age 65 that is unavailable to non-elderly taxpayers. And most states provide special property tax breaks to the elderly. Unfortunately, too many of these breaks are poorly-targeted, unsustainable, and unfair. This policy brief surveys federal and state approaches to reducing taxes for older adults and suggests options for designing less costly and better targeted tax breaks for elderly taxpayers.
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report February 16, 2015 Most Americans Live in States with Variable-Rate Gas Taxes
The federal government and many states are seeing shortfalls in their transportation budgets in part because the gasoline taxes they use to generate those funds are poorly designed. Thirty-one states and the federal government levy “fixed-rate” gas taxes where the tax rate does not change even as the cost of infrastructure materials inevitably increases over time. The federal government’s 18.4 cent gas tax, for example, has not increased in over 22 years. And twenty states have gone a decade or more without a gas tax increase.
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report February 10, 2015 How Long Has it Been Since Your State Raised Its Gas Tax?
An updated version of this report has been published with data through July 1, 2017. Read the report in PDF form. Many states’ transportation budgets are in disarray, in part… -
report January 30, 2015 Who Pays? (Fourth Edition)
Major tax overhauls are on the agenda in a record number of states, and “Who Pays?” documents in state-by-state detail the precise distribution of state income taxes, sales and excise… -
media mention September 30, 2014 Forbes: Fairness and the Reality of State Tax Systems
The survey was then meshed with some of the good work done by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which has demonstrated the fact that state tax systems are decidedly… -
media mention September 30, 2014 Wall Street Cheat Sheet: 10 States with the Least Fair Tax System
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) estimates that the real relationship between income and state and local taxes is negative, the complete opposite of what Americans think is… -
media mention September 30, 2014 Bloomberg BNA: Survey Says Higher Income Households Should Pay More
Using data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), WalletHub then compared what Americans think is fair to the structure of state and local tax systems. ITEP estimates…