New York

States are experiencing a rapid decline in state corporate income tax revenue, and the downward trend has become increasingly pronounced in recent years. Despite rebounding bottom lines for many corporations, a new ITEP report, 3 Percent and Dropping: State Corporate Tax Avoidance in the Fortune 500, 2008 to 2015,finds that effective tax rates paid by […]

The report, conducted by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and co-released in New York by the Fiscal Policy Institute, focuses on the executive order known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. The executive order first went into effect in 2012, and in New York State, of the estimated 820,000 undocumented immigrants, about 76,000 are eligible for DACA.

This week Alaska‘s House advanced a historic bill to reinstate an income tax in the state, Oklahoma‘s House voted to cancel a misguided tax cut “trigger,” West Virginia‘s governor colorfully vetoed his state’s budget, tax reform debate kicked off in Louisiana, and gas tax updates were considered in South Carolina and Tennessee, among other tax-related news […]

Profitable Fortune 500 companies in a range of economic sectors have been remarkably successful in manipulating the tax system to avoid paying even a dime in tax on billions of dollars in U.S. profits. This ITEP report examines a select, diverse group of 15 corporations' tax situations to shed light on the widespread nature of corporate tax avoidance. As a group, these companies paid no federal income tax on $21 billion in profits in 2016, and they paid almost no federal income tax on $111 billion in profits over the past five years. All but one received federal tax rebates…

This week in state tax news we see Louisiana‘s session getting started, budgets passed in New York and West Virginia, Kansas lawmakers taking a rest after defeating a harmful flat tax proposal, and Nebraska legislators preparing for full debate on major tax cuts. Nevada lawmakers may make tax decisions related to tampons, diapers, marijuana, and […]

This week in state tax news we saw a destructive tax cut effort defeated in Georgia, a state shutdown avoided in New York, and lawmakers hone in on major tax debates in Massachusetts, Nebraska, South Carolina, and WestVirginia. State efforts to collect taxes owed on online purchases continue to heat up as well. — Meg […]

There is a widespread misconception that unauthorized immigrants do not pay taxes. Yet, a careful national study prepared by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy—and coreleased in New York by the Fiscal Policy Institute with this report—finds that unauthorized immigrants currently pay $1.1 billion in state and local taxes in New York. Read more […]

The House plan to repeal healthcare reform, known as the American Health Care Act (AHCA), provides a tax cut to the wealthiest people while reducing the number of Americans with health coverage by an estimated 24 million, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Because Kentucky has relatively few high earners, we benefit even less from the […]

This paper puts forward a plan, which we call the Fair Share Tax, that would take a major step toward fixing Pennsylvania’s broken tax system and raise the revenues we need to invest in the public goods that are critical to creating thriving communities and individual opportunity in our state: education, infrastructure, protection for our […]

For decades, Amazon.com helped its customers dodge the sales taxes they owed to gain an advantage over its competitors. But as the company’s business strategy has changed, so has its tax collection. As recently as 2011, the nation’s largest e-retailer was collecting sales tax in just 5 states, home to 11 percent of the country’s […]

A growing number of Americans are getting rides or booking short-term accommodations through online platforms such as Uber and Airbnb. This is nothing new in concept; brokers have operated for hundreds of years as go-betweens for producers and consumers. The ease with which this can be done through the Internet, however, has led to millions of people using these services, and to some of the nation's fastest-growing, high-profile businesses. The rise of this on-demand sector, sometimes referred to as the "gig economy" or, by its promoters, the "sharing economy," has raised a host of questions. For state and local governments,…

Thursday, March 8 is International Women’s Day. The day draws attention to the progress that has been made and the work that still needs to be done in advancing gender equality. Many campaigns on issues like equal pay or paid family leave acknowledge that economic policies impact women and men differently. But we often overlook […]

Public debates over federal immigration reform, specifically around undocumented immigrants, often suffer from insufficient and inaccurate information about the tax contributions of undocumented immigrants, particularly at the state level. The truth is that undocumented immigrants living in the United States paybillions of dollars each year in state and local taxes. Further, these tax contributions would increase significantly if all undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States were granted a pathway to citizenship as part of comprehensive immigration reform. Or put in the reverse, if undocumented immigrants are deported in high numbers, state and local revenues could take a substantial…

This is the fourth installment of our six-part series on 2017 state tax trends. The introduction to this series is available here.   State lawmakers often find themselves looking for ways to raise revenue to fund vital public services, fill budget gaps, or pay for the elimination or weakening of progressive taxes. Lately, that search has […]

This week we bring news of Kansas lawmakers attempting to fix ill-advised tax cuts that have wreaked havoc on the state’s budget and schools, while their counterparts in Nebraska and Idaho debate bills that would create similar problems for their own states, as well as tax cuts in Arkansas that were proven unaffordable within one […]

This is the third installment of our six-part series on 2017 state tax trends. The introduction to this series is available here. As we described last week, many states are gearing up for challenging budget debates this year. But the need to address revenue shortfalls has not stopped lawmakers in many states from pursuing harmful […]

Below is a list of notable resources for information on state taxes and revenues: Alabama Alabama Department of Revenue Alabama Department of Finance – Executive Budget Office Alabama Department of Revenue – Tax Incentives for Industry Alabama Legislative Fiscal Office Alaska Alaska Department of Revenue – Tax Division Alaska Office of Management & Budget Alaska […]

Over the next few weeks we will be blogging about what we’re watching in state tax policy during 2017 legislative sessions. In this “What to Watch in the States” series, we will look at the following: State responses to short- and long-term revenue deficits Boosting funding for infrastructure, though sometimes at the expense of other […]

Since the 2007-2009 economic crisis, rising income inequality and the role our public policies play in aiding or easing this trend have been an ongoing part of the public discourse. In spite of what we know about the growing gap between the rich and the rest of us, federal and state policymakers continue to sell […]

When states shy away from personal income taxes in favor of higher sales and excise taxes, high-income taxpayers benefit at the expense of low- and moderate-income families who often face above-average tax rates to pick up the slack. This chart book demonstrates this basic reality by examining the distribution of taxes in states that have pursued these types of policies. Given the detrimental impact that regressive tax policies have on economic opportunity, income inequality, revenue adequacy, and long-run revenue sustainability, tax reform proponents should look to the least regressive, rather than most regressive, states in crafting their proposals.