Montana
State Rundown 7/7: The New Fiscal Year Starts off With a Bang, And Not Just Fireworks
• By ITEP Staff
States were busy over the past week despite the Fourth of July holiday. Many are gearing up for upcoming tax and budget clashes that could shape their futures for some time...
In Drive to Cut Taxes, States Blow an Opportunity to Invest in Underfunded Services
• By Marco Guzman
Many states find themselves in a peculiar fiscal situation right now: federal pandemic relief money has been dispersed to states and revenue projections have exceeded expectations set during the pandemic. Meanwhile, more and more workers are returning to jobs as vaccines roll out and typical economic activity resumes. Some states, however, have decided to squander their unexpected fiscal strength on tax cuts.
State Rundown 5/6: April Showers Bring Weeds As Well As Flowers
• By ITEP Staff
This week’s state fiscal news brings a reminder that even though advocates for great economic and racial justice have won some major progressive victories recently, anti-tax zealots have been hard at work too. Lawmakers advanced or enacted troubling regressive tax cuts or shifts in Idaho, Kansas, and Montana, and are actively debating them in Iowa, […]
State Rundown 4/29: How You Like Them Washington Apples?
• By ITEP Staff
North Carolina lawmakers may have approved a massive tax subsidy giveaway to Apple, but we won’t let that news spoil our barrel this week. Nor will we be discouraged by Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont’s threats to upset the apple cart full of positive progressive tax reforms state lawmakers recently came together to approve...Why all the optimism? Because the apple of our eye this week is Washington State, where advocates and lawmakers succeeded in a decade-long…
State Rundown 4/21: Spring Has Sprung, or Has It?
• By ITEP Staff
Just as a recent cold snap reminded us that spring has not fully sprung yet, this week’s news has been full of reminders that state fiscal debates aren’t quite finished either...
State Rundown 4/7: Tax Justice Advocates Applaud New York Budget Deal
• By ITEP Staff
New York lawmakers stole the spotlight this week as they were able to agree on—and convince reluctant Gov. Andrew Cuomo to support—strong progressive tax increases on the highest-income households and corporations in the state to fund shared priorities like K-12 education and pandemic recovery efforts. Minnesota leaders are attempting a similar performance off Broadway with progressive reforms of their own, while Kansas legislators are getting poor reviews for cutting a number of taxes and worsening…
Taxes and Racial Equity: An Overview of State and Local Policy Impacts
• By ITEP Staff
Historic and current injustices, both in public policy and in broader society, have resulted in vast disparities in income and wealth across race and ethnicity. Employment discrimination has denied good job opportunities to people of color. An uneven system of public education funding advantages wealthier white people and produces unequal educational outcomes. Racist policies such as redlining and discrimination in lending practices have denied countless Black families the opportunity to become homeowners or business owners,…
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 […]
Independent Record: GOP Lawmaker Doubles Tax Cut Rate in Montana Senate Bill
March 12, 2021
Under the un-amended bill, a person earning from $40,000-$63,000 would see a reduction of about $14, according to an analysis of the proposal by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The House Taxation Committee delayed action on another bill that also aims to lower the state’s top income tax rate after hitting snags in […]
How Long Has It Been Since Your State Raised Its Gas Tax?
• By Carl Davis
Many state governments are struggling to repair and expand their transportation infrastructure because they are attempting to cover the rising cost of asphalt, machinery, and other construction materials with fixed-rate gasoline taxes that are rarely increased.
Montana Budget & Policy Center: Policy Basics: Who Pays Taxes in Montana
• By ITEP Staff
Our tax dollars serve as shared investments in the programs and services that make our state a great place to live, work, and play. Tax dollars enable Montanans to work together for things we cannot achieve alone like a quality education for our children, the development and maintenance of infrastructure, public safety through police and […]
State Rundown 2/24: State Tax Debates Quickly Thaw Out with Warmer Weather
• By ITEP Staff
Warming temperatures in many parts of the country this week seem to be thawing out state fiscal debates as well. Multiple states including California, Colorado, Maryland, and New Jersey saw movement on efforts to improve tax credits for low- and middle-income families. Mississippi House lawmakers suddenly rushed through a dangerous bill to eliminate the state’s income tax and shift those taxes onto lower-income households. Montana senators also approved regressive income tax cuts and South Dakota…
State Rundown 2/17: Friction Over Tax Policy Still Generating Heat in Some Statehouses
• By ITEP Staff
Cold-hearted regressive tax proposals were pushed this week to cut income taxes on high-income households in states including Idaho, Montana, and West Virginia, while advocates for fair taxes and well-funded services continue to turn up the heat on taxing the richest residents in states like Connecticut and Pennsylvania.
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…
Montana Budget & Policy Center: What Proposed Tax Cuts Really Mean for Montanans
• By ITEP Staff
The 2021 Montana Legislature has the opportunity to address longstanding inequities in Montana’s tax code that have made life harder for many families. Previous legislatures have chosen to balance the budget by cutting needed services for our seniors, Montanans with disabilities, and those struggling with mental health instead of finding common-sense solutions to fairly increase […]
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…
State Rundown 1/7: State Work Continues in Shadow of National Events
• By ITEP Staff
Though most people’s attention is rightly focused on events unfolding in the nation’s capital this week, state legislative debates are also underway or soon to begin in many states, including proposals to tax the rich in New York and Rhode Island, provide a boost to low-income families in California, and legalize and tax cannabis in Missouri and Rhode Island.
After the Dust Has Settled: How Progressive Tax Policy Fared in the General Election
• By Marco Guzman
While the results of the 2020 presidential election are all but set in stone—and a sign of life for progressive policy—the results of state tax ballot initiatives are more of a mixed bag. However, the overall fight for tax equity and raising more revenue to invest in people and communities is trending in the right direction.
State Rundown 11/13: States Can Find Inspiration in Arizona Ballot Success; Must Look to Congress for More Immediate Help
• By ITEP Staff
Although progressive tax policy doesn’t always succeed in in statehouses or voting booths, Arizona voters showed once again that when offered a clear choice, most people resoundingly support requiring fairer tax contributions from rich individuals and highly profitable corporations over allowing their schools and other shared priorities to wither and decay. Still, a similar effort in Illinois and a more complicated measure in California were defeated, and anti-tax zealots in West Virginia and many other…
Voters Have the Chance in 2020 to Increase Tax Equity in Arizona, Illinois, and California, And They Should
• By Marco Guzman
There’s a lot at stake in this election cycle: the nation and our economy are reeling from the effects brought on by the coronavirus pandemic and states remain in limbo as they weigh deep budget cuts and rush to address projected revenue shortfalls.
State Rundown 10/7: States Looking Inward for Needed Revenue
• By ITEP Staff
The biggest news for state and local fiscal debates this week was that federal fiscal relief to help with their pandemic-induced revenue crises is effectively off the table for at least another month. But if there is a silver lining to this federal inaction, it may be that it coincides with New Jersey’s success filling part of its own revenue shortfall through a millionaires tax, as well as with prominent wealth managers admitting that their…
It’s No Secret—To Save State Budgets End Preferential Treatment of Capital Gains
• By Marco Guzman
In an updated policy brief, ITEP explores the flaws in state capital gains tax breaks and highlights how ending special tax breaks provides one of the simplest ways to raise additional revenue and increase equity in the tax system.
State Taxation of Capital Gains: The Folly of Tax Cuts & Case for Proactive Reforms
• By Marco Guzman
The federal tax system and every state treat income from capital gains more favorably than income from work. Preferential capital gains tax treatment includes exclusions and seldom-discussed provisions like deferral and stepped-up basis, as well as more direct tax subsidies for profits realized from local investments and, in some instances, from investments around the world. This policy brief explains state capital gains taxation, examines the flaws in state capital gains tax breaks, and proposes reform…
Boosting Incomes and Improving Tax Equity with State Earned Income Tax Credits in 2020
• By Aidan Davis
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a policy designed to bolster the incomes of low-wage workers and offset some of the taxes they pay, providing the opportunity for families struggling to afford the high cost of living 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…
