Florida

The vast majority of state and local tax systems are upside-down, with the wealthy paying a far lesser share of their income in taxes than low- and middle-income families. That’s according to the latest edition of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy’s Who Pays?, the only distributional analysis of tax systems in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Florida Download PDF All figures and charts show 2024 tax law in Florida, presented at 2023 income levels. Senior taxpayers are excluded for reasons detailed in the methodology. Our analysis includes nearly all (99.9 percent) state and local tax revenue collected in Florida. State and local tax shares of family income Top 20% Income Group […]

Contact: Jon Whiten (jon@itep.org) Last month when the IRS announced the inflation-adjusted 2024 tax brackets, it also adjusted the basic exemption to the federal estate tax. Next year, an individual can leave behind an estate of $13.61 million without triggering the tax (for a married couple, that doubles to $27.22 million). Clearly, the estate tax […]

The federal estate tax has reached historic lows. In 2019, only 8 of every 10,000 people who died left an estate large enough to trigger the tax. Legislative changes under presidents of both parties have increased the basic exemption from the estate tax over the past 20 years. This has cut the share of adults leaving behind taxable estates down from more than 2 percent to well under 1 percent.

Over time, broad wealth taxes were whittled away to become the narrower property taxes we have today. These selective wealth taxes apply to the kinds of wealth that make up a large share of middle-class families’ net worth (like homes and cars), but usually exempt most of the net worth of the wealthy (like business equity, bonds, and pooled investment funds).The rationale for this pared-back approach to wealth taxation has grown weaker in recent decades as inequality has worsened, the share of wealth held outside of real estate has increased, and the tools needed to administer a broad wealth tax…

August is here, school is starting, and with that comes back to school shopping...

The number of states with sales tax holidays on the books fell to 19 in 2023 from 20 in 2022. Yet even as slightly fewer states have them, they are estimated to cost much more. In 2023, sales tax holidays will cost states and localities nearly $1.6 billion in lost revenue, up from an estimated $1 billion just a year ago.

Sales tax holidays are bad policies that have too often been used as a substitute for more meaningful, permanent reform.

This year, 19 states will forgo a combined $1.6 billion in tax revenue on sales tax holidays—politically popular, yet ultimately ineffective gimmicks with minimal benefits and significant downsides.

Nineteen states have sales tax holidays on the books in 2023, and these suspensions will cost nearly $1.6 billion in lost revenue this year. Sales tax holidays are poorly targeted and too temporary to meaningfully change the regressive nature of a state’s tax system. Overall, the benefits of sales tax holidays are minimal while their downsides are significant.

We can make modest reforms to better tax those who are taking a larger share of our wealth and income in order to reinforce a major pillar of our promise to Americans.

By allowing their school privatization tax credit to expire at the end of the year, Illinois lawmakers can take a meaningful step toward better tax and education policy, and a clear show of support for our nation’s public education system.

This op-ed was originally published by Route Fifty and co-written by ITEP State Director Aidan Davis and Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Senior Advisor for State Tax Policy Wesley Tharpe. There’s a troubling trend in state capitols across the country: Some lawmakers are pushing big, permanent tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy and […]

Short-sighted tax cuts continue to make their way to Governors’ desks this week. In Florida, Gov. DeSantis signed a $1.3 billion tax cut package with $550 million of the tax cuts from sales tax holidays, alone. The Nebraska legislature also sent $6.4 billion in tax cuts to Gov. Pillen’s desk which includes an enormous personal income tax cut that will reduce taxes on the top 1 percent by tens of thousands of dollars.

Many state legislatures this year have been considering property tax cuts – but too many are ignoring the solution that speaks more directly to questions of property tax affordability than any other policy option: the “circuit breaker."

Concerns over property tax affordability have been at the forefront this year as housing prices have climbed and property tax bills have often increased along with them. As lawmakers mull a range of property tax cuts, circuit breakers are the best possible approach—and these policies are receiving far too little attention in the states.

This week, in states across the country the momentum to center improvements to family economic security remains strong...

The push by Congressional Republicans to make the provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent would cost nearly $300 billion in the first year and deliver the bulk of the tax benefits to the wealthiest Americans.

While the conversations on the debt ceiling heat up in the nation's capital, debates on state tax policy also continue to unfold in capitol buildings across the nation...

Tax season has ended for most filers, but the topic remains a hot one in states around the country...

As Tax Day approaches, it’s worth thinking about not only the taxes that we individually pay but the overall condition of our tax code as well. State tax codes, while perhaps less discussed than the federal system, are critically important. Depending on how they are designed, state taxes can improve or worsen economic and racial […]