Oklahoma
Trends We’re Watching in 2018, Part 3: Improvements to Tax Credits for Workers and Families
• By Aidan Davis
This has been a big year for state action on tax credits that support low-and moderate-income workers and families. And this makes sense given the bad hand low- and middle-income families were dealt under the recent Trump-GOP tax law, which provides most of its benefits to high-income households and wealthy investors. Many proposed changes are part of states’ broader reaction to the impact of the new federal law on state tax systems. Unfortunately, some…
State Rundown 3/22: Some Spring State Tax Debates in Full Bloom, Others Just Now Surfacing
• By ITEP Staff
The onset of spring this week proved to be fertile ground for state fiscal policy debates. A teacher strike came to an end in West Virginia as another seems ready to begin in Oklahoma. Budgets were finalized in Florida, West Virginia, and Wyoming, are set to awaken from hibernation in Missouri and Virginia, and are being hotly debated in several other states. Meanwhile Idaho, Iowa, Maryland, and Minnesota continued to grapple with implications of the…
State Rundown 3/14: States Turn Fiscal Focus Inward
• By ITEP Staff
With many state legislative sessions about halfway through, the ripple effects of the federal tax-cut bill took a back seat this week as states focused their energies on their own tax and budget issues. Major proposals were released in Nebraska and New Jersey, one advanced in Missouri, and debates wrapped up in Florida, Utah, and Washington. Oklahoma and Vermont are considering ways to improve education funding, while California, New York, and Vermont look to require…
Trends We’re Watching in 2018, Part 2: State Revenue Shortfalls and the Impact on Education and Other Services
• By Aidan Davis
Many states struggle with a need for revenue, yet their lawmakers show little will to raise taxes to fund public services. Revenue shortfalls can prove to be a moving target. Some states with expected shortfalls are now seeing rosier forecasts. But as estimates come in above or below projections, states continue to grapple with how and whether to raise the revenue necessary to adequately fund key programs. Here are a few trends that are leading to less than cushy…
State Rundown 2/28: February a Long Month for State Tax Debates
• By ITEP Staff
February may be the shortest month but it has been a long one for state lawmakers. This week saw Arizona, Idaho, Oregon, and Utah seemingly approaching final decisions on how to respond to the federal tax-cut bill, while a bill that appeared cleared for take-off in Georgia hit some unexpected turbulence. Other states are still studying what the federal bill means for them, and many more continue to debate tax and budget proposals independently of…
State Rundown 2/22: State Tax Debates Grind On
• By ITEP Staff
This week, major tax packages relating to the federal tax-cut bill made news in Georgia, Iowa, and Louisiana, as Minnesota and Oregon lawmakers also continue to work out how their states will be affected. New Mexico's legislative session has finished without significant tax changes, while Idaho and Illinois's sessions are beginning to heat up, and Vermont's school funding system is under the microscope.
State Rundown 2/14: To Couple or Not to Couple?
• By ITEP Staff
This Valentine's week finds California, Georgia, Missouri, New York, Oregon, and other states flirting with the idea of coupling to various components of the federal tax-cut bill. Meanwhile, lawmakers seeking revenue solutions to budget shortfalls in Alaska, Oklahoma, and Wyoming saw their advances spurned, and anti-tax advocates in many states have been getting mixed responses to their tax-cut proposals. And be sure to check out our "what we're reading" section to see how states are…
State Rundown 2/8: State Responses to Federal Bill Gaining Steam
• By ITEP Staff
Several states this week are looking at ways to revamp their tax codes in response to the federal tax cut bill, with Georgia, Idaho, Maryland, Nebraska, and Vermont all actively considering proposals. Meanwhile, Connecticut, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania are working on resolving their budget shortfalls. And transportation funding is getting needed attention in Mississippi, Utah, and Wisconsin.
State Rundown 1/31: Low-Income Families’ Taxes Getting Some Much-Needed Attention
• By ITEP Staff
This week was promising for advocates of Earned Income Tax Credits (EITCs) and other tax breaks for workers and their families, which are making headway in Alabama, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Utah, and Wisconsin. The week also saw the unveiling of a tax cut plan in Missouri, a budget-balancing tax increase package in Oklahoma, the end of an unproductive film tax credit in West Virginia, and a very busy week for tax policy in Utah.
Tulsa World: Legislative Action Preventing Federal Income Tax Change from Blowing a $375 Million Hole in State Budget
January 28, 2018
December’s federal income tax reform bill would have decreased Oklahoma’s state income tax revenue by $375 million had legislators not “decoupled” from the federal standard deduction last year, analysts say. “Had we not decoupled, the state would have been bringing in $375 million less this year,” said David Blatt of the Oklahoma Policy Institute, citing […]
What the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Means for States – A Guide to Impacts and Options
• By ITEP Staff
The recently enacted Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) has major implications for budgets and taxes in every state, ranging from immediate to long-term, from automatic to optional, from straightforward to indirect, from certain to unknown, and from revenue positive to negative. And every state can expect reduced federal investments in shared public priorities like health care, education, public safety, and basic infrastructure, as well as a reduced federal commitment to reducing economic inequality and…
Charleston Post-Courier: An Abuse of Charitable Giving?
January 14, 2018
Under the new law, some wealthy South Carolinians may actually make a 37 percent profit, risk-free, by making charitable contributions to Exceptional SC, a nonprofit fund created by the state Legislature to administer scholarships to students with disabilities attending private schools. That’s according to a recent report by the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. South Carolina has […]
State Rundown 1/12: Tax Cut Tunnel Vision Threatens to Bore State Budget Holes Even Deeper
• 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…
The Fiscal Times: More States Are Turning to Toll Roads
January 9, 2018
Nineteen states have waited a decade or more since last increasing their gas tax rates. Another 13 states have gone at least two decades, and three states — Alaska, Oklahoma and Mississippi — have not increased their gas tax rates since the 1980s, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a progressive think tank […]
NPR: This Tax Loophole for Wealthy Donors Just Got Bigger
December 29, 2017
One of the changes, according to the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy, which advocates for a “fair and sustainable” tax system, allows far more wealthy donors in 10 states to turn a profit through “donations” to private school scholarships. Yes, you read that right. If your income is high enough, you can actually make […]
How the Final GOP-Trump Tax Bill Would Affect Oklahoma Residents’ Federal Taxes
• 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 […]
The Final Trump-GOP Tax Plan: National and 50-State Estimates for 2019 & 2027
• By ITEP Staff
The final Trump-GOP tax law provides most of its benefits to high-income households and foreign investors while raising taxes on many low- and middle-income Americans. The bill goes into effect in 2018 but the provisions directly affecting families and individuals all expire after 2025, with the exception of one provision that would raise their taxes. To get an idea of how the bill will affect Americans at different income levels in different years, this analysis…
ITEP Resources for the Tax Reform Debate
• By ITEP Staff
ITEP researchers have produced new reports and analyses that look at various pieces of the tax bill, including: the share of tax cuts that will go to foreign investors; how the plans would affect the number of taxpayers that take the mortgage interest deduction or write off charitable contributions, and remaining problems with the bill in spite of proposed compromises on state and local tax deductions.
Private Schools Donors Likely to Win Big from Expanded Loophole in Tax Bill
• By Carl Davis
For years, private schools around the country have been making an unusual pitch to prospective donors: give us your money, and you’ll get so many state and federal tax breaks in return that you may end up turning a profit. Under tax legislation being considered in Congress right now, that pitch is about to become even more persuasive.
Tax Bill Would Increase Abuse of Charitable Giving Deduction, with Private K-12 Schools as the Biggest Winners
• By Carl Davis
In its rush to pass a major rewrite of the tax code before year’s end, Congress appears likely to enact a “tax reform” that creates, or expands, a significant number of tax loopholes.[1] One such loophole would reward some of the nation’s wealthiest individuals with a strategy for padding their own bank accounts by “donating” to support private K-12 schools. While a similar loophole exists under current law, its size and scope would be dramatically…
State Rundown 12/13: Supermajority Laws Considered in Some States Even as They Confound Others
• By ITEP Staff
Supermajority requirements for tax increases are proving a major obstacle to responsible budgeting in Oklahoma, while ballot initiatives are being filed to alter or abolish Oregon‘s similar requirement, but a similar requirement is slowly advancing toward the ballot in Florida nonetheless. Displeasure with agricultural property taxes are spawning both a ballot initiative drive and a […]
How the House and Senate Tax Bills Would Affect Oklahoma Residents’ Federal Taxes
• 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 Oklahoma residents.
National and 50-State Impacts of House and Senate Tax Bills in 2019 and 2027
• 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. National and 50-State data available to download.
Senate “Pass-Through” Deduction Threatens to Undermine State Tax Systems
• By Carl Davis
The U.S. Senate will soon be voting on a bill that would, among other things, allow so-called “pass-through” businesses to pay significantly lower taxes than their employees...If the Senate “pass-through” deduction is enacted into law, dozens of states will be forced to confront the possibility of reduced revenue collections, more regressive tax codes, and increased tax avoidance.
A Corporate Tax Cut Would Benefit Coastal Investors, Not the Heartland
• By Carl Davis
The centerpiece of the House and Senate tax plans is a major tax cut for profitable corporations that the American public does not want, and that will overwhelmingly benefit a small number of wealthy investors living in traditionally “blue” states. New ITEP research shows that poorer states such as West Virginia, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Tennessee would be largely left behind by a corporate tax cut, while the lion’s share of the benefits would remain with…
