Nebraska

It’s beginning to look a lot like that time of year again. That’s right, it’s sales tax holiday season and states across the country are doing their best to induce spending that would probably occur regardless...

As more and more state legislatures wrap up their sessions and we reflect on the whirlwind that is this past year, it’s easy to focus on the steps back that states like Oklahoma have taken and Nebraska, North Carolina, and Arizona are trying to take. We have had some significant wins in states over the course of the year, but not every development will be a good one. However, we know advocates are on the ground, working tirelessly to help states maintain equity and progressivity in their tax codes. And for that, we have many of you—our intrepid readers of…

“Tax Day” was earlier this week but the debates, research, and advocacy that determine our taxes and how they are used take place every day of the year...

We had our noses buried in new American Rescue Plan guidance...when we heard the refreshing news that Missouri leaders are on the verge of modernizing their tax code, not only by becoming the final state to apply sales taxes to online purchases, but also by enacting an Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)...Meanwhile, tax debates are also highly active in California, Colorado, Louisiana, Maine, and Nebraska. We also share some of our own reporting on recent efforts in Arizona and several other states to undermine voter-approved reforms and democratic institutions themselves.

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, […]

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 fight...

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...

Two significant victories headlined state tax debates in the past week, as New Mexico leaders improved existing targeted tax credits to give bigger boosts and reach more families in need, and West Virginia lawmakers unanimously shut down a destructive effort to eliminate the state’s progressive income tax. These developments follow last week’s major wins for progressive taxation and targeted assistance in New York, and more good news is likely soon as Washington legislators continue to advance their own targeted credit for working families. Not all the news is positive though, as costly and/or regressive tax cuts remain on the table…

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, creating extraordinary differences in intergenerational wealth. These inequities have long-lasting effects that compound over time.

We wrote last week that the inclusion of fiscal relief for states and localities in Congress’s American Rescue Plan should free up state lawmakers’ time and attention to focus on the comprehensive reforms needed to address upside-down and inadequate tax codes, and some states are already doing just that.

State and local policymakers will be preoccupied for a short time with celebrating and deciphering the federal pandemic relief package approved today, but ultimately the federal aid should free them to focus on even bigger concerns such as tax codes that often fail to adequately fund core priorities even in good years and exacerbate the economic and racial inequities that this pandemic has laid bare.

Although lawmakers in some states continue to push for expensive and regressive tax cuts that would primarily benefit wealthy households, worsen economic and racial injustices, and undermine funding for key public services, this week’s state fiscal news is dominated by efforts to do the opposite. Leaders in the District of Columbia, Maine, Nebraska, New York, Washington, and Wyoming made recent headlines by advocating for policies that improve on upside-down tax codes and generate needed funding for shared priorities like schools and health care.

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.

This week, the governors of New Hampshire and West Virginia proposed to eliminate their states’ most progressive revenue sources and shift taxes even more heavily onto the middle- and low-income families who already pay the highest rates in both states. It was also a big week for proponents of legalizing recreational cannabis, as that movement made progress in Hawaii, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

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 for more on bold proposals that increase tax fairness and solidify bottom lines with needed revenue in states including Connecticut, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont,…

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 education funding, policymakers there are seeking to reverse course by slashing taxes instead. And North Dakota lawmakers are considering converting their graduated income tax into…

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 tax credits for families in need in Connecticut and Maryland, harmful obstacles to revenue generation proposed in Nebraska and Wyoming, and renewed hope on the…

As states kick off their 2021 legislative sessions, it’s clear that many governors and lawmakers are attempting to “take a mulligan” on the last year and recycle tax-slashing ideas that were already bad in 2020 and are even worse now as states try to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic and accompanying downturn...On a brighter note, Illinois leaders showed they did learn from the events of 2020, passing a major criminal justice reform bill and payday loan protections intended to reduce racial inequities.

Our last Rundown of 2020 includes news of yet another misguided proposal to eliminate a state income tax, this time in Arkansas. Florida and Missouri, on the other hand, are looking to modernize their tax codes by becoming the last two states to enforce their own sales taxes on online retailers. Leaders in Maryland and Oregon, meanwhile, are working to decouple the state from unnecessary and regressive tax cuts included in the federal CARES Act. And Missouri and Nevada lawmakers both got updated estimates of the revenue shortfalls they will need to resolve when they convene in 2021. The Rundown…

Just as people will search their hearts to give thanks this week for the small and large things that got them through a difficult year, state lawmakers are also doing their best to count their blessings while keeping fingers crossed for badly needed federal relief to give them something to be truly grateful for.

Even with Halloween coming up this weekend, months of dealing with the horrors of the Covid-19 pandemic have made it hard to scare anyone in the closing months of 2020, which state lawmakers and residents are showing by voting in droves and supporting policies they had been more trepidatious about in recent years.