Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP)

Hawaii

brief  

Preventing State Tax Subsidies for Private K-12 Education in the Wake of the New Federal 529 Law

• By Ronald Mak

This policy brief explains the federal and various state-level breaks for 529 plans and explores the potential impact that the change in federal treatment of 529 plans will have on state revenues.

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What the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Means for States – A Guide to Impacts and Options

• By ITEP Staff

The recently enacted Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) has major implications for budgets and taxes in every state, ranging from immediate to long-term, from automatic to optional, from straightforward to indirect, from certain to unknown, and from revenue positive to negative. And every state can expect reduced federal investments in shared public priorities like health care, education, public safety, and basic infrastructure, as well as a reduced federal commitment to reducing economic inequality and…

blog  

State Rundown 1/17: Budget Deficits, Online Sales Tax, and More

• By ITEP Staff

The big news this week in state tax law is that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take on the issue of online sales, nexus, and sales tax collection. States have increasingly lost out on sales tax revenues as more transactions have shifted online from brick-and-mortar stores and the laws determining who is required to collect and remit sales taxes haven't kept up. This is potentially good news for states—25 of which National Association…

How the Final GOP-Trump Tax Bill Would Affect Hawaii Residents’ Federal Taxes

• By ITEP Staff

The final tax bill that Republicans in Congress are poised to approve would provide most of its benefits to high-income households and foreign investors while raising taxes on many low- and middle-income Americans. The bill would go into effect in 2018 but the provisions directly affecting families and individuals would all expire after 2025, with […]

report  

The Final Trump-GOP Tax Plan: National and 50-State Estimates for 2019 & 2027

• By ITEP Staff

The final Trump-GOP tax law provides most of its benefits to high-income households and foreign investors while raising taxes on many low- and middle-income Americans. The bill goes into effect in 2018 but the provisions directly affecting families and individuals all expire after 2025, with the exception of one provision that would raise their taxes. To get an idea of how the bill will affect Americans at different income levels in different years, this analysis…

blog  

All I Want for Christmas is a Clean DREAM Act

• By Misha Hill

As 2017 draws to close, Congress has yet to take legislative action to protect Dreamers. The young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children, and are largely working or in school, were protected by President Obama’s 2012 executive action, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). But in September, President Trump announced that he would end DACA in March 2018. Instead of honoring the work authorizations and protection from deportation that currently…

How the House and Senate Tax Bills Would Affect Hawaii Residents’ Federal Taxes

• By ITEP Staff

The House passed its “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” November 16th and the Senate passed its version December 2nd. Both bills would raise taxes on many low- and middle-income families in every state and provide the wealthiest Americans and foreign investors substantial tax cuts, while adding more than $1.4 trillion to the deficit over ten years. The graph below shows that both bills are skewed to the richest 1 percent of Hawaii residents.

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National and 50-State Impacts of House and Senate Tax Bills in 2019 and 2027

• By ITEP Staff

The House passed its “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” November 16th and the Senate passed its version December 2nd. Both bills would raise taxes on many low- and middle-income families in every state and provide the wealthiest Americans and foreign investors substantial tax cuts, while adding more than $1.4 trillion to the deficit over ten years. National and 50-State data available to download.

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Resources for Your Thanksgiving Dinner Tax Policy Debates

• By ITEP Staff

ITEP has analyzed each of the tax proposals advanced by the House and Senate in recent weeks. While some details have changed, the bottom line is the same: The plans would disproportionately benefit corporations and the wealthy. The Senate tax plan ITEP’s latest analysis examined the proposal that passed the Senate Finance Committee on Nov. […]

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Revised Senate Plan Would Raise Taxes on at Least 29% of Americans and Cause 19 States to Pay More Overall

• By ITEP Staff

The tax bill reported out of the Senate Finance Committee on Nov. 16 would raise taxes on at least 29 percent of Americans and cause the populations of 19 states to pay more in federal taxes in 2027 than they do today.

How the Revised Senate Tax Bill Would Affect Hawaii Residents’ Federal Taxes

• By ITEP Staff

The Senate tax bill released last week would raise taxes on some families while bestowing immense benefits on wealthy Americans and foreign investors. In Hawaii, 40 percent of the federal tax cuts would go to the richest 5 percent of residents, and 16 percent of households would face a tax increase, once the bill is fully implemented.

news release  

Senate Tax Plan Reserves Greatest Benefit for Richest Americans, Millions Face an Increase

• By ITEP Staff

A 50-state analysis of the Senate tax proposal finds that not only would greatest share of benefits go to the richest Americans, but also more than one in 10 taxpayers would face a tax hike, with a large number of those taxpayers residing in states where residents pay higher state and local taxes.

blog  

House Tax Bill Would Put Property Tax Deduction Out of Reach for Most Households

• By ITEP Staff

The House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on a bill that would reduce federal revenues by roughly $1.5 trillion over the next decade. Despite the bill’s high price tag, many households would pay more in federal tax if the bill is enacted, in large part because it slashes the deduction for state […]

How the House Tax Proposal Would Affect Hawaii Residents’ Federal Taxes

• By ITEP Staff

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was introduced on November 2 in the House of Representatives, includes some provisions that raise taxes and some that cut taxes, so the net effect for any particular family’s federal tax bill depends on their situation. Some of the provisions that benefit the middle class — like lower tax rates, an increased standard deduction, and a $300 tax credit for each adult in a household — are designed to…

report  

Analysis of the House Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

• By Matthew Gardner, Meg Wiehe, Steve Wamhoff

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was introduced on Nov. 2 in the House of Representatives, would raise taxes on some Americans and cut taxes on others while also providing significant savings to foreign investors.

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Trickle-Down Dries Up: States without personal income taxes lag behind states with the highest top tax rates

• By Carl Davis, Nick Buffie

Lawmakers who support reducing or eliminating state personal income taxes typically claim that doing so will spur economic growth. Often, this claim is accompanied by the assertion that states without income taxes are booming, and that their success could be replicated by any state that abandons its income tax. To help evaluate these arguments, this study compares the economic performance of the nine states without broad-based personal income taxes to their mirror opposites—the nine states…

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Benefits of GOP-Trump Framework Tilted Toward the Richest Taxpayers in Each State

• By Steve Wamhoff

The “tax reform framework” released by the Trump administration and Congressional Republican leaders on September 27 would affect states differently, but every state would see its richest residents grow richer if it is enacted. In all but a handful of states, at least half of the tax cuts would flow to the richest one percent of residents if the framework took effect.

GOP-Trump Tax Framework Would Provide Richest One Percent in Hawaii with 59.8 Percent of the State’s Tax Cuts

• By ITEP Staff

The “tax reform framework” released by the Trump administration and congressional Republican leaders on September 27 would not benefit everyone in Hawaii equally. The richest one percent of Hawaii residents would receive 59.8 percent of the tax cuts within the state under the framework in 2018. These households are projected to have an income of at least $470,500 next year. The framework would provide them an average tax cut of $39,750 in 2018, which would…

blog  

Poverty is Down, But State Tax Codes Could Bring It Even Lower

• By Misha Hill

The U.S. Census Bureau released its annual data on income, poverty and health insurance coverage this week. For the second consecutive year, the national poverty rate declined and the well-being of America’s most economically vulnerable has generally improved. In 2016, the year of the latest available data, 40.6 million (or nearly 1 in 8) Americans were living in poverty.

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State Tax Codes as Poverty Fighting Tools

• By ITEP Staff

Astonishingly, tax policies in virtually every state make it harder for those living in poverty to make ends meet. When all the taxes imposed by state and local governments are taken into account, every state imposes higher effective tax rates on poor families than on the richest taxpayers.

brief  

Rewarding Work Through State Earned Income Tax Credits in 2017

• By ITEP Staff

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a policy designed to bolster the earnings of low-wage workers and offset some of the taxes they pay, providing the opportunity for struggling families to step up and out of poverty toward meaningful economic security. The federal EITC has kept millions of Americans out of poverty since its enactment in the mid-1970s. Over the past several decades, the effectiveness of the EITC has been magnified as many states…

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State Rundown 8/31: Modernizing Taxes is Sometimes a Sprint, Sometimes a Marathon

• By ITEP Staff

Tax and budget debates are progressing at different paces in different parts of the country this week. In Connecticut and Wisconsin, lawmakers hope to finally settle their budget and tax differences soon. In South Dakota, a court case that could finally enable states to enforce their sales taxes on online retailers inches slowly closer to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Nearly Half of Trump’s Proposed Tax Cuts Go to People Making More than $1 Million Annually

• By ITEP Staff

A tiny fraction of the U.S. population (one-half of one percent) earns more than $1 million annually. But in 2018 this elite group would receive 48.8 percent of the tax cuts proposed by the Trump administration. A much larger group, 44.6 percent of Americans, earn less than $45,000, but would receive just 4.4 percent of the tax cuts.

In Hawaii 32.2 Percent of Trump’s Proposed Tax Cuts Go to People Making More than $1 Million

• By ITEP Staff

A tiny fraction of the Hawaii population (0.3 percent) earns more than $1 million annually. But this elite group would receive 32.2 percent of the tax cuts that go to Hawaii residents under the tax proposals from the Trump administration. A much larger group, 46.6 percent of the state, earns less than $45,000, but would receive just 9.1 percent of the tax cuts.

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Trump Touts Tax Cuts for the Wealthy as a Plan for Working People

• By Steve Wamhoff

Unless the administration takes a radically different direction on tax reform from what it has already proposed, its tax plan would be a monumental giveaway to the top 1 percent. The wealthiest one percent of households would receive 61 percent of all the Trump tax breaks, and would receive an average of $145,400 in 2018 alone.