Michigan
State Income Taxes and Racial Equity: Narrowing Racial Income and Wealth Gaps with State Personal Income Taxes
• By Carl Davis, Jessica Schieder, Marco Guzman
10 state personal income tax reforms that offer the most promising routes toward narrowing racial income and wealth gaps through the tax code.
State Rundown 9/29: Where There’s Smoke, There’s Revenue?
• By ITEP Staff
One of the few industries to excel during the economic downturn brought on by the pandemic has been the marijuana business, and lawmakers around the country are taking notice as they try to ensure that sales in their state are both legal and subject to tax...
State Rundown 9/1: Labor Day Edition
• By ITEP Staff
Labor Day is around the corner and in the spirit of celebrating the achievements of workers around the country, we here at ITEP want to call attention to the states (and territories) that are using tax policy to support workers and residents alike...
Sales Tax Holidays: An Ineffective Alternative to Real Sales Tax Reform
• By Dylan Grundman O'Neill
Policymakers tout sales tax holidays as a way for families to save money while shopping for “essential” goods. On the surface, this sounds good. However, a two- to three-day sales tax holiday for selected items does nothing to reduce taxes for low- and moderate-income taxpayers during the other 362 days of the year. Sales taxes are inherently regressive. In the long run, sales tax holidays leave a regressive tax system unchanged, and the benefits of…
State Rundown 7/21: States Go for Tax Policy Gold This Olympics Season
• By ITEP Staff
It’s Olympics season! As countries around the globe battle for first place in a plethora of sports and contests it’s as good a time as any to look around America to see which states deserve a gold medal in the ‘Equitable Tax Policy’ event...
Gentrification and the Property Tax: How Circuit Breakers Can Help
• By David Crawford
Property tax circuit breakers are effective because they provide property tax relief to families whose property taxes surpass a certain percentage of their income. If a family in a gentrifying area sees their property tax bill (or their rent) surge to an unaffordable level, a circuit breaker credit kicks in to offer relief. This targeted approach assists low- and middle-income families without significantly reducing overall tax revenue.
State and Local Cannabis Tax Revenue Jumps 58%, Surpassing $3 Billion in 2020
• By Carl Davis
Cannabis taxes are a small part of state and local budgets, clocking in at less than 2 percent of tax revenue in the states with legal adult-use sales. But they’re also one of states’ fastest-growing revenue sources. Powered by an expanding legal market and a pandemic-driven boost in cannabis use, excise and sales taxes on […]
Comparing Flat-Rate Income Tax Options for Alaska
• By Carl Davis
Alaska lawmakers are facing an unprecedented fiscal crisis. The state is more dependent than any other on oil tax and royalty revenues but declines in oil prices and production levels have sapped much of the vitality of these revenue sources. One way of diversifying the state’s revenue stream and narrowing the yawning gap between state revenues and expenses would be to reinstitute a statewide personal income tax. Alaska previously levied such a tax until 1980.…
State Rundown 2/4: Some Lawmakers, Governors Rising to Occasion with Progressive Tax Proposals
• By ITEP Staff
States face shifting landscapes as they attempt to deal with both emergent and longstanding issues in their tax codes and budget structures. This is particularly evident in Oklahoma, where lawmakers must adjust to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that literally redraws state boundaries by recognizing the rights of indigenous communities, but is true in every state, and lawmakers in many of them are rising to the challenge. Read below and see our blog posted today…
State Rundown 1/28: EITC Efforts a Welcome Contrast to State Tax Tug-of-War
• By ITEP Staff
Efforts to deliver and improve targeted tax credits to support low- and middle-income families proved to be unifying in Washington and Oregon, welcome developments in an otherwise divisive week in state tax debates. For example, Mississippi advocates hoping to end the state’s regressive grocery tax are up against a governor and many lawmakers pulling in the opposite direction by trying to eliminate its income tax. After Arizona residents approved an income tax increase to improve…
State Rundown 1/22: Somewhere Between a Flurry and a Blizzard of State Tax Activity So Far
• By ITEP Staff
You won’t find any images of Bernie Sanders and his mittens photoshopped into this week’s Rundown, but you will find the latest news on state fiscal debates, including proposals to generate needed funding by raising taxes on high-income households and profiting businesses in California, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, and Washington, as well as misguided efforts to slash taxes in Arizona, Iowa, South Carolina, Utah, and West Virginia. Also in the news are thoughtful improvements to targeted…
It’s Time to Change the Tax Laws to Make Donald Trump and Corporate Giants Pay Up
• By Amy Hanauer
It’s time for a new approach. Trump’s egregious tax avoidance further exposes a system that preserves an enormous and growing economic divide. Congress has gutted IRS funding so that we don’t have the resources to audit wealthy tax avoiders. And lobbyists continue to secure giveaways for corporate clients that do nothing for our communities.
The Rich Are Weathering the Pandemic Just Fine: Tax Them
• By Carl Davis, ITEP Staff, Meg Wiehe
Reductions in critical state and local investments, including health care and education, would only exacerbate the economic crisis brought on by COVID-19 and worsen racial and income inequality for years to come. Higher taxes on top earners are among the best options for addressing pandemic-related state revenue shortfalls in the coming months.
State Rundown 8/26: Progressive Revenue Ideas Featured in Many States’ Fiscal Debates
• By ITEP Staff
Voters could significantly change the tax landscape through ballot measures this November regarding oil taxes in Alaska and a high-income surcharge for education funding in Arizona. Legislators are doing their part to bring progressive tax ideas to the fore as well, including a possible wealth tax in California, a millionaires tax in New Jersey, and a pied-a-terre proposal in New York. And Nebraska lawmakers reached a property tax and business tax subsidy compromise before closing…
State Rundown 8/12: States Find Themselves in New Unemployment Pickle
• By ITEP Staff
Even in statehouses, many eyes remained on Congress and President Trump this week as state lawmakers advocated for needed federal fiscal relief and debated whether they can afford to join in on the president’s executive order requiring states to partially fund a new version of enhanced unemployment benefits that have otherwise expired.
Sales Tax Holidays: An Ineffective Alternative to Real Sales Tax Reform
• By Dylan Grundman O'Neill
Lawmakers in many states have enacted “sales tax holidays” (16 states will hold them in 2020) to provide a temporary break on paying the tax on purchases of clothing, school supplies, and other items. These holidays may seem to lessen the regressive impacts of the sales tax, but their benefits are minimal while their downsides are significant—and amplified in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This policy brief looks at sales tax holidays as a…
State Rundown 7/8: Many State Legislatures Reconvene for Special or Resumed Sessions
• By ITEP Staff
Local leaders in the District of Columbia and Seattle, Washington, approved progressive tax changes to raise needed funding this week for priorities such as coronavirus relief, affordable housing, and mental health. Arizona advocates submitted signatures to place a high-income surcharge on the ballot for November. And as a number of states made decisions on how to use federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funds, North Carolina decoupled from costly business tax cuts…
State Rundown 7/1: Happy New Year?
• By ITEP Staff
As ITEP analyst Kamolika Das wrote today, July 1 is typically the beginning of state fiscal years and “a point when one can take a step back and reflect on the wins and disappointments of the past state legislative sessions.” Not so in 2020, she writes, as uncertainty surrounding the virus, state revenues, and potential federal action give state lawmakers no such time to relax and reflect. Although most recent state actions, such as those…
State Rundown 6/26: States Take Varying Fiscal Approaches While Awaiting Federal Action
• By ITEP Staff
State policymakers this week took a variety of approaches to their fiscal situations amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Tennessee lawmakers chose to balance their budget through $1.5 billion in cuts to public services, but not before adding to those cuts by going forward with planned tax cuts. California legislators also passed a budget but relied on a number of temporary measures and delays to do so. Their counterparts in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island opted…
State Rundown 6/18: States Work to “Finalize” Budgets in Uncertain Times
• By ITEP Staff
Despite uncertainty all around the nation, a few states passed budgets this week and many more are negotiating to enact theirs before fiscal years close at the end of June. Colorado notably pared back some of its own tax breaks and limited the potential damage on its budget from new federal breaks. California also passed a budget but few in the state actually think the dealing is done. Iowa quietly enacted its budget too, though…
State Rundown 5/20: State Revenue Crisis Getting Clearer…and Scarier
• By ITEP Staff
State policymakers are navigating incredibly uncertain waters these days as they attempt to get a firmer grasp on the scale of their revenue crises, identify painful budget cuts they may have to make in response, and look for ways to raise tax revenues coming from the households and corporations still bringing in large incomes and profits amid the pandemic—all while hoping that additional federal aid and greater flexibility in how they can use federal CARES…
Michigan Live:If second round of stimulus payments is approved, how much could you get?
May 18, 2020
Additionally, the bill as currently written would make those people retroactively eligible to receive the initial stimulus payment under the CARES Act. The Institute On Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that ITIN filers would receive over $9.4 billion in direct economic relief. Other than that, the HEROES Act has the same eligibility requirements as the previous […]
Intended Consequences: Deliberate Disinvestment Caused Florida’s Unemployment Disaster
• By Stephanie Clegg
Florida politicians deliberately rigged the unemployment system after the Great Recession to avoid raising taxes on businesses. Now, in a pandemic, some out-of-work residents are left waiting more than six weeks for unemployment benefits while more than 280,000 others have been inexplicably denied. What’s happening in Florida underscores deeper challenges with systems that should help those in need, but instead are designed to fail them.
State Rundown 3/19: Spring Is Here but States Brace for Long Winter
• By ITEP Staff
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt more and more aspects of life and cause greater and greater harms to public health and the economy, information is changing by the hour. State policymakers, if they are even able to convene, are wholly focused on how to respond to the crisis. The pandemic is certain to pose a series of fiscal challenges for states and their economies, and this week’s Rundown focuses on the most helpful…
State Rundown 3/11: Georgia Bucks Trend of Cautious Policymaking Amid Crises
• By ITEP Staff
With all eyes on the potential effects of the oil price war and COVID-19 coronavirus on lives, communities, and economies, Georgia House lawmakers this week crammed through a regressive and costly tax cut for the rich with essentially no debate, information, or transparency. Most states are proceeding much more responsibly, assessing the ramifications for their service provision needs and revenues to fund those needs.
