• report  May 23, 2018

    SALT/Charitable Workaround Credits Require a Broad Fix, Not a Narrow One

    The federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) enacted last year temporarily capped deductions for state and local tax (SALT) payments at $10,000 per year. The cap, which expires at the end of 2025, disproportionately impacts taxpayers in higher-income states and in states and localities more reliant on income or property taxes, as opposed to sales taxes. Increasingly, lawmakers in those states who feel their residents were unfairly targeted by the federal law are debating and enacting tax credits that can help some of their residents circumvent this cap.

  • blog  May 22, 2018

    Most States Have Raised Gas Taxes in Recent Years

    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 Increasingly, state lawmakers are deciding that outdated gas taxes need to be raised and reformed to fund infrastructure projects that are vital to their economies.

  • brief  May 22, 2018

    How Long Has It Been Since Your State Raised Its Gas Tax?

    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.

  • blog  May 21, 2018

    Debate Over New Jersey’s Millionaires and ITEP’s Data

    New Jersey’s new governor, Phil Murphy campaigned on a promise to raise state income taxes on millionaires, a proposal that is supported by 70 percent of the state and was, until recently, backed by New Jersey’s Senate President, Steve Sweeney. In recent months, Sweeney changed his position on the proposed millionaires tax and called for an increase in New Jersey’s corporate tax instead. The idea of hiking taxes on corporations is not a bad one, particularly since corporations received a windfall from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. But Sweeney’s new opposition to an income tax hike for the state’s richest residents seems to be based on an erroneous reading of ITEP’s data.

  • blog  May 17, 2018

    State Rundown 5/17: Don't Bet on Legal Sports Betting Solving State Budget Woes

    This week the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door to legal sports gambling in the states (see our What We’re Reading section), which will surely be a hot topic in state legislative chambers, but most states currently have more pressing matters before them. The teacher pay crisis made news in North Carolina, Alabama, and nationally. Louisiana, Oregon, and Vermont lawmakers are headed for special sessions over tax and budget issues. And several other states have recently reached or are very near the end of their legislative sessions. 

  • blog  May 16, 2018

    Why Proponents of the Trump-GOP Tax Law Can’t Get their Story Straight

    If you listened closely to today’s House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), you could sense that the witnesses speaking in favor of the new tax law were not 100 percent on the same page. This has been apparent ever since the law was enacted at the end of last year. The economists who speak in favor of the law (including Douglas Holtz-Eakin at today’s hearing) tend to focus on other indicators of its success. They know that the talk of bonuses and raises is nothing more than a desperate corporate PR campaign to save the law from being repealed or scaled back in the future.

  • blog  May 15, 2018

    There Is No Evidence That the New Tax Law Is Growing Our Economy or Creating Jobs

    The House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) Wednesday. Proponents of the law likely will use the occasion to tout its alleged economic benefits and argue that its temporary provisions should be made permanent. The title of the hearing is “Growing Our Economy and Creating Jobs,” but there is little evidence that the law does either of these things.

  • blog  May 15, 2018

    NC Teachers’ March on Raleigh and the Tax Cuts that Led Them There

    Once again, public school teachers are taking a stand for education and against irresponsible, top-heavy tax cuts that deprive states of the revenue they need to sufficiently fund public services, including education.

  • blog  May 10, 2018

    No Work Requirements for the Richest 1 Percent — Most of Their Tax Cuts Are for Unearned Income

    The Trump Administration is pushing to add or strengthen work requirements for programs that benefit low- and middle-income people but holds a different view when it comes to the wealthy. Most tax cuts enjoyed by the richest 1 percent of households under the recently enacted Tax Cuts and Job Act (TCJA) are tax cuts for unearned income.

  • blog  May 9, 2018

    State Rundown 5/9: Iowa Digs a New Hole as Other States Try to Avoid or Climb Out of Theirs

    This week we have news of a destructive tax cut plan finally approved in Iowa just as one was narrowly avoided in Kansas. Tax debates in Minnesota and Missouri will go down to the wire. And residents of Arizona and Colorado are considering progressive revenue solutions to their states’ education funding crises.