Iowa
Iowa Flat Tax Shows Why Such Policies Are a Problem Everywhere
May 9, 2024 • By Eli Byerly-Duke
As Iowa lawmakers change the state’s graduated personal income tax to a single flat rate, they are designing a state tax code where the rich will pay a lower rate overall than families with modest means.
Eliminating Income Taxes Would Be an Expensive Giveaway
March 20, 2024 • By Aidan Davis
Governors and legislative leaders in a dozen states have made calls to fully eliminate their taxes on personal or corporate income, after many states already deeply slashed them over the past few years. The public deserves to know the true impact of these plans, which would inevitably result in an outsized windfall to states’ richest taxpayers, more power in the hands of wealthy households and corporations, extreme cuts to basic public services, and more deeply inequitable state tax codes.
Recent Tax Cuts Have Expanded Inequality in the States
March 11, 2024 • By Jon Whiten
Some states have improved tax equity by raising new revenue from the well-off and creating or expanding refundable tax credits for low- and moderate-income families in recent years. Others, however, have gone the opposite direction, pushing through deep and damaging tax cuts that disproportionately help the rich. Many of these negative developments are quantified in […]
Common Good Iowa: Both Governor’s, Senate Plans Worsen Tax Inequalities
February 12, 2024 • By ITEP Staff
Iowans have traditionally valued expanding opportunity, caring for neighbors and a strong sense of fair play. Tax-cut proposals at the Iowa Statehouse from Governor Kim Reynolds and legislative leaders turn these Iowa values upside down. They would drastically restrict revenue needed to fund critical services such as education, health care, public safety and environmental quality. The Senate bill, SSB 3141, would set out to fully eliminate the income tax, which until recently has funded roughly half of the state budget. By targeting benefits to the wealthiest Iowans, the plans would throw an already inequitable tax system further out of balance.
Iowa: Who Pays? 7th Edition
January 9, 2024 • By ITEP Staff
Iowa Download PDF All figures and charts show 2024 tax law in Iowa, 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 Iowa. These figures depict Iowa’s 2024 graduated personal income tax, with a top […]
Common Good Iowa: Tax Cuts: What’s At Stake for Iowans
January 4, 2024 • By ITEP Staff
The income tax is a way Iowans come together to lay strong foundations that create opportunity and help people thrive. Governor Reynolds and legislative leaders want to eliminate Iowa’s personal income tax — a virtual promise to decimate the services that make Iowa a better place to live, work and raise a family. Read more.
Taxes Should be Part of the State of the Union Agenda
March 1, 2022 • By Amy Hanauer
President Biden should elevate his tax and revenue proposals which remain essential if we are to pay for environmental restoration, health priorities and peacekeeping, the front-burner items that may dominate the speech.
Common Good Iowa: New Income Tax Cuts – a Recipe for Disaster and Inequity
February 10, 2022 • By ITEP Staff
Iowa lawmakers have repeatedly cut taxes over the last three decades in ways that provide the greatest benefits to the highest-income taxpayers while ratcheting down investments that historically made the state attractive to raise a family or do business — including public schools and public health. Now, within months of passing tax cuts that when […]
Iowa Fiscal Partnership: Tax Inequity: Iowa’s Continuing Story
October 17, 2018 • By ITEP Staff
Iowa taxes its middle- and low-income families more as a share of income than it does wealthy families, a long-term trend worsened by the 2018 tax overhaul. The latest “Who Pays” report by the Washington-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), again shows the effect of sales taxes and property taxes on lower-income households tilts Iowa’s overall tax system so the poorest pay the highest percentage in taxes.
Iowa: Who Pays? 6th Edition
October 17, 2018 • By ITEP Staff
IOWA Read as PDF IOWA STATE AND LOCAL TAXES Taxes as Share of Family Income Top 20% Income Group Lowest 20% Second 20% Middle 20% Fourth 20% Next 15% Next 4% Top 1% Income Range Less than $22,500 $22,500 to $40,500 $40,500 to $63,000 $63,000 to $102,200 $102,200 to $188,200 $188,200 to $438,600 over $438,600 […]
Tax Cuts 2.0 – Iowa
September 26, 2018 • By ITEP Staff
The $2 trillion 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) includes several provisions set to expire at the end of 2025. Now, GOP leaders have introduced a bill informally called “Tax Cuts 2.0” or “Tax Reform 2.0,” which would make the temporary provisions permanent. And they falsely claim that making these provisions permanent will benefit […]
Gas Taxes Rise in Seven States, Including an Historic Increase in Oklahoma
June 26, 2018 • By Carl Davis
A rare sight is coming to Oklahoma. The last time the Sooner State raised its gas tax rate, the Berlin Wall was still standing, and Congress was debating whether to ban smoking on flights shorter than two hours. Fast forward 31 years, and Oklahoma is finally at it again. On Sunday, the state’s gas tax rate will rise by 3 cents and its diesel tax rate by 6 cents. Both taxes will now stand at 19 cents per gallon—still among the lowest in the country. But Oklahoma isn’t the only state where gas taxes will soon rise.
Most States Have Raised Gas Taxes in Recent Years
May 22, 2018 • By Carl Davis
An updated version of this blog was published in April 2019. State tax policy can be a contentious topic, but in recent years there has been a remarkable level of agreement on one tax in particular: the gasoline tax. Increasingly, state lawmakers are deciding that outdated gas taxes need to be raised and reformed to fund infrastructure projects that are vital to their economies.
Iowa Fiscal Partnership: Tax Plan Facts vs. Spin
May 5, 2018 • By ITEP Staff
As Iowa lawmakers consider the agreed-upon tax plan developed by Republican leadership and Governor Reynolds, sharp differences are clear from earlier proposals by the Governor and the House Ways and Means Committee.
Iowa Fiscal Partnership: IFP’s Tax Policy Kit
April 29, 2018 • By ITEP Staff
IFP's Tax Policy Kit offers resources for the public, advocates and policy makers who want to better understand the stakes — and sort away the spin — on state tax debates.
Iowa Fiscal Partnership: Passing Through a Special Break for Wealthiest Filers
March 19, 2018 • By ITEP Staff
The tax bill that recently passed the Iowa Senate included a provision from the recent federal tax cut bill that provides preferential tax treatment for certain kinds of business income earned mostly by the highest income taxpayers. The “Qualified Business Income Deduction” (QBID) provides a 20 percent exemption of that income from the personal income tax.
Iowa Fiscal Partnership: Passing through a special break
March 19, 2018 • By ITEP Staff
The tax bill that recently passed the Iowa Senate included a provision from the recent federal tax cut bill that provides preferential tax treatment for certain kinds of business income earned mostly by the highest income taxpayers. The “Qualified Business Income Deduction” (QBID) provides a 20 percent exemption of that income from the personal income […]
Iowa Fiscal Partnership: Governor’s Plan Sets Stage For Service Cuts
March 16, 2018 • By ITEP Staff
Iowa’s General Assembly opened with promises from legislative leadership and the Governor for tax reform. We noted key opportunities to assure a fairer and sustainable system in a brief report last fall, “Introduction to 2018: What should be part of tax reform? And what should not?”[i] These options remain; some are gaining attention — such as the elimination of federal deductibility and the closing of sales tax loopholes — and some are not.
Iowa Fiscal Partnership: Governor’s Tax Cut Plan Sets Stage For Service Cuts
March 7, 2018 • By ITEP Staff
Governor Kim Reynolds’ tax proposal trades massive cuts in public services for small savings for lower-income taxpayers, larger savings for high-income taxpayers and few meaningful strides toward fairness in a system that already treats the poor poorly and raises too little revenue to avoid mid-year cuts.
State Rundown 1/12: Tax Cut Tunnel Vision Threatens to Bore State Budget Holes Even Deeper
January 12, 2018 • By ITEP Staff
As states continue to sift through wreckage of the federal tax cut bill to try to determine how they will be affected, two things should be clear to everyone: the richest people in every state just got a massive federal tax cut, and federal funding for shared priorities like education and health care is certain to continue to decline. State leaders who care about those priorities should consider asking those wealthy beneficiaries of the federal cuts to pay more to the state in order to minimize the damage of the looming federal funding cuts, but so far policymakers in Idaho,…
How the Final GOP-Trump Tax Bill Would Affect Iowa Residents’ Federal Taxes
December 16, 2017 • 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 […]
How the House and Senate Tax Bills Would Affect Iowa Residents’ Federal Taxes
December 6, 2017 • 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 Iowa residents.
How the Revised Senate Tax Bill Would Affect Iowa Residents’ Federal Taxes
November 13, 2017 • 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 Iowa, 34 percent of the federal tax cuts would go to the richest 5 percent of residents, and 9 percent of households would face a tax increase, once the bill is fully implemented.
How the House Tax Proposal Would Affect Iowa Residents’ Federal Taxes
November 6, 2017 • 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 expire or become less generous over time. Some of the provisions that benefit the wealthy, such as the reduction and eventual repeal of the estate…
GOP-Trump Tax Framework Would Provide Richest One Percent in Iowa with 50.2 Percent of the State’s Tax Cuts
October 4, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
The “tax reform framework” released by the Trump administration and congressional Republican leaders on September 27 would not benefit everyone in Iowa equally. The richest one percent of Iowa residents would receive 50.2 percent of the tax cuts within the state under the framework in 2018. These households are projected to have an income of at least $440,800 next year. The framework would provide them an average tax cut of $50,050 in 2018, which would increase their income by an average of 4.3 percent.
