Nebraska
Policymakers Unwisely Propose Cutting Property Taxes in Favor of Sales Taxes
January 14, 2025 • By Rita Jefferson
Lawmakers across the country are taking aim at property taxes with a new strategy: raising sales taxes instead. Doing so would create a regressive tax shift that puts unfair burdens on renters and reduces the strength of local government revenues.
OpenSky Policy Institute: Modeling Details How Amended Tax Package Would Impact Nebraskans
April 18, 2024 • By ITEP Staff
Most Nebraskans who claim the state income tax credit on property taxes paid to public schools will see little change in what they pay resulting from the tax package to be debated today, the final day of the Legislative session. But for Nebraska’s lowest-income earners – households making less than $30,000 annually – the impact of […]
Nebraska: Who Pays? 7th Edition
January 9, 2024 • By ITEP Staff
Nebraska Download PDF All figures and charts show 2024 tax law in Nebraska, presented at 2023 income levels. Senior taxpayers are excluded for reasons detailed in the methodology. Our analysis includes nearly all (99.5 percent) state and local tax revenue collected in Nebraska. These figures depict Nebraska’s personal income, corporate income and property taxes at […]
OpenSky Policy Institute: Proposed Property Tax Breaks Benefit Wealthy While Restricting School Revenue
May 11, 2023 • By ITEP Staff
The Legislature on Wednesday and Thursday will consider property tax breaks and corresponding income tax cuts that together would restrict the revenue that’s available to fund important programs that all Nebraskans rely on for years to come. Read more.
OpenSky Policy Institute Webinar: Data Shows Child Tax Credits Benefit Hardworking Families
March 27, 2023 • By ITEP Staff
New evidence on child tax credits at the federal level has shown “stunning” results in lifting children out of poverty throughout the country and a state-level policy could continue that momentum, benefiting a broad range of families, panelists including ITEP State Policy Director Aidan Davis said in a February 8 webinar.
OpenSky Policy Institute: Policy Brief: Consumption Tax
March 3, 2023 • By ITEP Staff
The consumption tax proposal in LB 79 would require a rate of 22.1 percent to be revenue neutral, OpenSky analysis conducted with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy finds. This rate is nearly three times greater than what is proposed in the bill. Further, OpenSky estimates that if the consumption tax were to be […]
Open Sky Policy Institute: Major Tax and Education Plans Would Quickly Drain Flush State Coffers
January 23, 2023 • By ITEP Staff
The cost of high-profile K-12 finance and tax packages introduced this week would entirely consume the projected $1.9 billion that lawmakers have to enact new legislation in the current two-year budget cycle and then some. Read more.
Open Sky Policy Institute: Most Nebraskans Left Behind by Income Tax Cut Bills
February 4, 2022 • By ITEP Staff
Non-Nebraskans, corporations and wealthy residents would be big winners under the latest income tax cuts proposed in in LB 938 and LB 939. Meanwhile, the bills – which would ratchet the state’s top corporate and personal income tax rates to 5.84% over four and three years respectively – offer most Nebraskans little tax savings while depleting revenue needed […]
Open Sky Policy Institute: LB 64: A costly measure that is unlikely to impact retiree migration
May 11, 2021 • By ITEP Staff
LB 64, a bill slated for second-round debate on today’s legislative agenda, is a costly measure that would give wealthy retirees a sizable tax break under the premise of keeping them from fleeing to other states. Few retirees, however, are likely to flee regardless of what happens to our tax code and those who do […]
Open Sky Policy Institute: Policy brief — LB 432: A big tax cut for corporations
May 6, 2021 • By ITEP Staff
LB 432, which will soon be up for debate on select file, would give a sizable tax cut to corporations and their shareholders. The vast majority of the tax cut would go out of state and the revenue losses created by the bill would threaten services that Nebraskans need. Read more
Open Sky Policy Institute: Policy Brief — LR 11CA presents a dangerous, untested proposal
May 5, 2021 • By ITEP Staff
Under the proposed 10.64% tax rate, and with the allowance, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) finds that all income groups would receive a tax cut on average, with the exception of the second-lowest quintile — those with incomes between $24,000 and $38,800 — who would pay 2.4% more of their income in […]
Nebraska: Who Pays? 6th Edition
October 17, 2018 • By ITEP Staff
NEBRASKA Read as PDF NEBRASKA 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 $24,400 $24,400 to $38,800 $38,800 to $65,100 $65,100 to $103,500 $103,500 to $204,000 $204,000 to $462,600 over $462,600 […]
Tax Cuts 2.0 – Nebraska
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.
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 Nebraska 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 Nebraska 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 Nebraska residents.
How the Senate Tax Bill Would Affect Nebraska Residents’ Federal Taxes
November 14, 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 Nebraska, 40 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 Nebraska 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…
State Rundown 10/18: Ballot Initiative Efforts Being Finalized
October 18, 2017 • By .ITEP Staff
Ballot initiatives relating to taxes made news around the country this week, with Oregon voters to consider reversing new health care taxes, Washingtonians to vote on improving education funding, and Nebraskans to potentially vote on a state tax credit for school property taxes. Meanwhile, multiple states are finalizing their proposals to lure Amazon to build a new headquarters in their state, often through the use of massive tax subsidies. And in our "What We're Reading" section we have sobering news from Moody's Investors Service on states' struggles to fund their infrastructure and save for the next recession.
GOP-Trump Tax Framework Would Provide Richest One Percent in Nebraska with 59.3 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 Nebraska equally. The richest one percent of Nebraska residents would receive 59.3 percent of the tax cuts within the state under the framework in 2018. These households are projected to have an income of at least $521,300 next year. The framework would provide them an average tax cut of $80,910 in 2018, which would increase their income by an average of 5.1 percent.
In Nebraska 38.4 Percent of Trump’s Proposed Tax Cuts Go to People Making More than $1 Million
August 17, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
A tiny fraction of the Nebraska population (0.5 percent) earns more than $1 million annually. But this elite group would receive 38.4 percent of the tax cuts that go to Nebraska residents under the tax proposals from the Trump administration. A much larger group, 41.8 percent of the state, earns less than $45,000, but would receive just 5.0 percent of the tax cuts.
Trump Tax Proposals Would Provide Richest One Percent in Nebraska with 52.6 Percent of the State’s Tax Cuts
July 20, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
Earlier this year, the Trump administration released some broadly outlined proposals to overhaul the federal tax code. Households in Nebraska would not benefit equally from these proposals. The richest one percent of the state’s taxpayers are projected to make an average income of $1,572,200 in 2018. They would receive 52.6 percent of the tax cuts that go to Nebraska’s residents and would enjoy an average cut of $128,300 in 2018 alone.
Investors and Corporations Would Profit from a Federal Private School Voucher Tax Credit
May 17, 2017 • By Carl Davis
A new report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) and AASA, the School Superintendents Association, details how tax subsidies that funnel money toward private schools are being used as profitable tax shelters by high-income taxpayers. By exploiting interactions between federal and state tax law, high-income taxpayers in nine states are currently able […]
