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blog
September 18, 2014
What's the Matter with Kansas Is What Ails All 50 States
It’s easy to hold up Kansas as the poster child for regressive tax policies gone awry. By now it’s apparent Gov. Sam Brownback and his… -
report
September 18, 2014
State Tax Codes As Poverty Fighting Tools
Read the Report in PDF Form The Census Bureau released data in September showing that the share of Americans living in poverty remains high. In… -
blog
September 16, 2014
Poverty Data Not Surprising, No Matter How You Spin It
The top 20 percent of households captured more of the nation’s collective income (51 percent) than the rest of population, according to the Census report… -
report
August 5, 2014
Sales Tax Holidays: An Ineffective Alternative to Real Sales Tax Reform
Sales taxes are an important revenue source, comprising close to half of all state revenues in 2013. But sales taxes are also inherently regressive because the lower a family’s income, the more of its income the family must spend on things subject to the tax.
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brief
July 30, 2014
Options for Progressive Sales Tax Relief
See the 2016 Updated Brief Here Read the Policy Brief in PDF Form Sales taxes are one of the most important revenue sources for state… -
report
July 21, 2014
State Estate and Inheritance Taxes
For much of the last century, estate and inheritance taxes have played an important role in helping states to adequately fund public services in a way that improves the progressivity of state tax systems. While many of the taxes levied by state and local governments fall most heavily on low-income families, only the very wealthy pay estate and inheritance taxes.
Recent changes in the federal estate tax, however, culminating in the “fiscal cliff ” deal of early 2013, have forced states to reevaluate the structure of their estate and inheritance taxes. Unfortunately, the trend of late has tended toward weakening or completely eliminating state estate taxes. This policy brief discusses inheritance and estate taxes and how states can adopt these important components of a progressive tax structure.
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report
May 28, 2014
Pay-Per-Mile Tax is Only a Partial Fix
The gasoline tax is the single largest source of funding for transportation infrastructure in the United States, but the tax is on an unsustainable course. Sluggish gas tax revenue growth has put strain on transportation budgets at the federal and state levels, and has led to countless debates around the country about how best to pay for America’s infrastructure.
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report
May 21, 2014
STAMP is an Unsound Tool for Gauging the Economic Impact of Taxes
The Beacon Hill Institute (BHI), a free-market think tank located at Suffolk University, frequently uses its State Tax Analysis Modeling Program (STAMP) to perform analyses purporting to show that lowering taxes, or not raising them, will benefit state economies. But STAMP suffers from a number of serious methodological problems and should not be relied upon by anybody seeking to understand the economic impacts of state tax policies.
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brief
May 20, 2014
State Gasoline Taxes: Built to Fail, But Fixable
An updated version of this brief was published on February 9, 2017. Read this report in pdf. Every state levies taxes on gasoline and… -
brief
May 20, 2014
The Federal Gas Tax: Long Overdue for Reform
The federal gas tax is a critical source of funding for the nation’s transportation system, but its design is fundamentally flawed. In recent years, the consequences of those flaws have become increasingly obvious, as the federal government has struggled to fund a 21st century transportation network with a gas tax that has predictably failed to keep pace with the nation’s growing infrastructure needs. This ITEP Policy Brief explains how the federal gas tax works, its importance as a transportation revenue source, the problems confronting the gas tax, and the reforms that are needed to overcome these problems.