Hartford Business Journal: Major policies opposed by businesses loom in Democrat-controlled legislature

When Rep. Josh Elliott (D-Hamden) calls Connecticut’s tax system regressive, it’s not just an opinion.

The Democrat is citing a 2014 report by the state’s own tax department, that uses a scoring method called the Suits Index to measure the impact of Connecticut’s nine major state and local taxes. The Department of Revenue Services concluded the overall impact of those taxes on households in the state is “slightly regressive.”

That means the percentage of a household’s income paid in those taxes decreases as income grows. Though individually some taxes, like the income tax, are progressive, others, like the property tax, are not. Connecticut is far from alone in having a regressive tax system, and it’s actually pretty average, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank.

ITEP’s 2018 ranking of tax equity found that 45 of 50 states have regressive tax systems. ITEP ranks Connecticut as the 29th most regressive. Read more