Kansas
The Emporia Gazette: Tax Structure Is the Problem
May 28, 2015
When considering income taxes overall, information from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy indicates that the poorest 20 percent of Kansans pay 11.1 percent of their income in taxes while the wealthiest 1 percent of Kansans pay only 3.6 percent. We have an unfair tax system. More than 300,000 businesses in Kansas are paying […]
Alternet: Tax Cuts for the Rich Made Kansas Broke–So Now States Move to Raise Taxes on the Poor
April 28, 2015
In its 2015 edition of “Who Pays: A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All Fifty States,” the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy counts Kansas among the 10 states with the “most regressive state and local tax systems.” Taxes eat up 11.1 percent of income for the poorest 20 percent of Kansas residents. […]
Wonkette: You Won’t Believe How Kansas is Paying for Rich People’s Tax Cuts
April 28, 2015
Among the fifth of the Kansas population with the lowest incomes, the average person pays 11.1 percent of what they make in state and local taxes, including sales taxes. Among the wealthiest one in every 100 Kansans, the average tax bill is just 3.6 percent of annual income, according to a recent report from the […]
Washington Post: Kansas Lawmakers Want the Poor to Pay for Tax Cuts for the Rich
April 21, 2015
The Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy’s Meg Wiehe notes that in many states, average incomes have only increased among the richest groups in recent years. As a result, a system of taxation that depends more on the economic fortunes of the poor and the middle class might not produce increasing revenue in the future to meet the needs of growing […]
Hutchinson News: Tax Poor
April 20, 2015
A new report from the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows that in Kansas families who make less than $20,000 a year pay about 11.1 percent of their pay in state and local taxes. Those on the other end of the income scales? The report found that families with incomes above $439,000 – […]
Undocumented Immigrants’ State & Local Tax Contributions (2015)
April 15, 2015 • By Matthew Gardner, Meg Wiehe
This report was updated February 2016 Read as a PDF. (Includes Full Appendix of State-by-State Data) Report Landing Page In the public debates over federal immigration reform, sufficient and accurate information about the tax contributions of undocumented immigrants is often lacking. The reality is the 11.4 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States pay billions […]
Vermont Public Radio: Business Leaders Mount Campaign Against Plan to Limit Tax Deductions
April 15, 2015
Carl Davis is a senior analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a Washington, D.C., based research group that analyzes federal, state and local tax policies. Davis, who lives in Vermont, says there’s no reason to think Vermont would suffer any competitive disadvantage if it goes through with the plan. “Massachusetts, Connecticut and […]
The Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas Tax System Puts Higher Burden on Poor
April 15, 2015
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy examined each state’s income, sales, excise and property taxes to determine how much the average person at various income levels would pay. In Kansas, people earning less than $20,000 paid 11.1 percent of their income in taxes on average, while people earning more than $439,000 paid only about […]
The Kansas City Star: American Tax Policy Has 50 Shades of Gray
February 18, 2015
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy recently examined state and local tax policy and found Kansas has the ninth-most “unfair” tax system in the nation. A Kansan earning $47,700 a year — smack dab in the middle of all earners — pays 9.5 percent of his or her income in state and local taxes. […]
The New Republic: Brownback’s Right-Wing Experiment is Bankrupting Kansas
February 18, 2015
There’s a much better way for Kansas to fulfill its constitutional duties and avoid these yearly budget shortfalls: give up on its failed tax cuts and raise revenue. And that revenue should come from the richest Kansans. Between 1979 and 2012, the top 1 percent of Kansans has nearly doubled its share of income, from […]
The Atlantic: Robin Hood in Reverse
January 28, 2015
But according to a new report from The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the impact of those federal tax breaks is largely offset by the burden of state and local taxes. Here’s how state and local taxes break down as a percentage of income: The richest Americans pay the least. The tax mix changes […]
Slate: Republicans Are Finally Talking About Income Inequality
January 24, 2015
The problem is that this shifts the tax burden from the top to the bottom. In other words, it’s upward redistribution of wealth that harms the least well-off. And while the vast majority of states have tax systems that hit low-income Americans the hardest, these effects are worst in conservative states, where the highest tax […]
Last week, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy released Who Pays?, a report that examines the state and local tax system in all 50 states. The analysis concludes that every state’s tax system is regressive, meaning the lower one’s income, the higher one’s tax rate. Not surprisingly, the report ruffled a few feathers. It’s […]
PoliticsUSA: Despite Kansas’s Continuing Economic Disaster, Sam Brownback
January 20, 2015
A sales tax increase will not affect the rich proportionally, and according to The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, states with high sales tax are ‘fundamentally unfair” to poor, and lower-middle-income Americans; particularly in states with no income tax because they “disproportionally eat into low-wage workers’ meager incomes.” The Tax Institute’s list of the […]
MSNBC: Running out of Options, Brownback Revisits Tax Policy
January 20, 2015
The Politico report quoted Meg Wiehe, state policy director at the liberal-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, saying, “We’ve seen this exploding budget gap, and this year, after three years of this experience, the recognition is they have to put a halt on these tax cuts.” said Which is a polite way of […]
Lawrence Journal-World: Kansas has ninth most regressive tax code
January 16, 2015
Lower-income people in Kansas are taxed at more than twice the rate as upper-income people, according to a new report released Wednesday. The fifth edition of the “Who Pays?” study from two think tanks, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) and the Kansas Center for Economic Growth, says the poorest 20 percent of […]
KSN: Kansas among “Terrible Ten” states for regressive tax systems
January 16, 2015
The 2015 report, entitled Who Pays: A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All Fifty States by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, or ITEP, claims to assess the “fairness” of state and local tax systems “by measuring the state and local taxes that will be paid in 2015 by different income groups […]
Salon: Defiant Sam Brownback vows to move toward zero income tax — and make Kansas even more unequal
January 16, 2015
“A study released this week underscores one of the most pernicious effects of such a tax regime: It exacerbates inequality. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that “[v]irtually every state’s tax system is fundamentally unfair,” with state and local taxes eating disproportionately into lower-income workers’ wages. But the effect was far worse in […]
Forbes: State With World’s Richest Man Has Most Regressive Taxes (But Don’t Blame Bill Gates)
January 16, 2015
“A new analysis of state and local taxes for 2015 shows that despite changes in Kansas and other states that have reduced taxes on the rich, Washington State continues to have the most “regressive” tax system in the country—meaning its taxes hit poor families the hardest, compared to rich ones. Overall, the bottom 20% of […]
The Wichita Eagle: Brownback will try to raise taxes to fill budget hole, but whose taxes?
January 16, 2015
“A study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy released this month concluded that households making less than $20,000 in Kansas would spend 11.1 percent of their income paying state and local taxes in 2015 primarily due to the state’s reliance on sales tax. On the other hand, households making more than $177,000 are […]
The Star-Herald: Lawmakers Should Pursue Fairness, Not Partisan Hype, in Plans for Tax Reform
December 16, 2014
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy said the bottom 20 percent of Kansas taxpayers saw their tax burden increase while the wealthiest Kansans saw their taxes decrease. With special-interest PAC money pouring into Kansas state government races, the Legislature doubled down, proposing another round of tax cuts that would eliminate income taxes and maintain […]
Slate: The Kansas Miracle
October 3, 2014
In reality, however, Kansas’ job growth stagnated in 2012 and income growth fell. Far from a stimulus plan, Brownback’s tax cuts were a massive program of redistribution for the rich. According to a report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the bottom 20 percent of Kansas taxpayers saw their tax burden increase by […]
Washington Post: Kansas’s Midterm Election Are a Referendum on Supply-Side Economics
September 30, 2014
By Max Ehrenfraud Brownback has signed major tax breaks into law, reduced state spending and arguably made it harder for people in poverty to receive welfare. He called his initiatives “a real live experiment” in red-state governance, a choice of words he now says he regrets. “I don’t consider this an experiment,” he told The Post recently. “This is […]
What’s the Matter with Kansas Is What Ails All 50 States
September 18, 2014 • By Jenice Robinson
It’s easy to hold up Kansas as the poster child for regressive tax policies gone awry. By now it’s apparent Gov. Sam Brownback and his allies in the state legislature were wrong when they predicted lopsided tax cuts would boost the state’s economy. The state will have trouble funding priorities such as education and services […]
Read the Report in PDF Form The Census Bureau released data in September showing that the share of Americans living in poverty remains high. In 2013, the national poverty rate was 14.5 percent, a slight drop from last years’ rate of 15 percent and the first decline since 2006.1 However, the poverty rate remains 2.0 […]
