Citations

Years of efforts to reform Louisiana’s regressive and overly complicated tax code have run aground in the state Legislature. The result: Louisianans pay the second-highest sales taxes in the nation, while the tax code is riddled with costly exemptions and deductions. The state’s broken tax structure is a major reason why the state lurched from budget crisis to budget crisis over the last decade and has struggled to fund critical programs and services like higher education and health care. The Advocate’s editorial board shares its thoughts on the latest report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. 

The Arkansas Legislative Tax Reform and Relief Task Force’s recommendations would make the state’s tax system even more regressive than it already is. According to a new analysis by Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families and the Institute on Tax and Economic Policy, the net overall impact of the combined recommendations would actually raise taxes on the neediest Arkansans. At the same time, it would target a bigger share of the decrease to those with the highest incomes.

Louisiana’s upside-down tax structure means the highest income-earners pay less than the poorest families, when measured as a percentage of income. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy’s  “Who Pays” report lays this out in careful detail, and the latest edition breaks down the tax distribution by race. The conclusion: Black households pay a higher percentage of their income in state and local taxes than white households. Louisiana has work to do to make the tax structure fairer and reduce racial inequalities.

Poor and middle-income families in Louisiana pay state and local taxes at a higher rate than the wealthiest families. That’s the key takeaway from the latest state-by-state breakdown of tax distribution by income groups from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). Louisiana’s tax structure is the 14th most regressive in the nation.

The biggest drivers of the inequality in Idaho are the sales and property taxes. In every bracket of income measured by the Institute’s report, the amount that families paid in state and excise taxes went down as their total income increased. The lowest-earning 20 percent spent twice as much of their annual income on property taxes as the highest 20 percent, with an average of 3.3 percent paid on their property compared to 1.6 percent.

Kansans believe in fairness. However, a recent study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) and the Kansas Center for Economic Growth finds that the lowest-income Kansans are contributing a higher share of their income to fund our priorities. Without an equitable tax structure, we will struggle to make necessary investments in great […]

When it comes to fairness, New Mexico’s tax system is backwards. Those who earn the smallest incomes pay the highest rates in state and local taxes, according to a new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The responsibility for taxes should not fall hardest on those with the least ability to pay, but it does. There are several ways we can make our tax system fairer.

Oregon’s poorest families pay more in taxes as a share of income than any group of taxpayers in the state, while the richest Oregonians pay the smallest share of any group. That is the conclusion of a new report by the Washington, D.C.-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP).

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy says Illinois has one of the most regressive taxes in the nation, largely due to its flat income tax. In its annual “Who pays?” report, the institute said the poorest 20 percent of Illinois households pay 14 percent of their income in taxes because of the flat tax in addition to high sales and property taxes.

The public should also rally to levy a modest tax on wealth over $20 million. A direct tax on wealth paid by the wealthiest one tenth of one percent could generate significant revenue to be reinvested in creating and restoring opportunities for low wealth households to prosper. A 1 percent annual tax on the wealthiest 0.1 percent of households, those with wealth over $20 million, would generate an estimated $1.899 trillion in revenue over the next decade, according to a forthcoming report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

A new report from the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) shows the poorest 20 percent of Illinois households pay nearly twice as much in state and local taxes as the richest one percent. As a result, ITEP ranks Illinois as the eighth most regressive tax system in the country.

Much has been written about how the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), pushed by Republican leaders in Congress and signed into law by President Trump in December 2017, mostly benefits wealthy households while driving up the federal deficit by $1.9 trillion over the next 10 years. This growing deficit — already 17% higher in the federal fiscal year that ended on September 30 than in the previous year — threatens federal funding for critical investments and services that provide economic security and opportunity for low- and middle-income households.

Speaking of the Senate, the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy put out its annual “Who Pays” report on tax equity, which found the vast majority of states have tax systems that are inequitable, with lower- and middle-income families paying a larger percentage of income in taxes than upper-income families.It singled out the “Terrible 10” states with the most regressive tax systems, with the common denominator among those states being that they have no or very low income taxes, which they make up through having very high and broad-based sales taxes.