• blog  August 25, 2021

    Eliminating the State Income Tax Would Wreak Havoc on Mississippi

    History has repeatedly shown that such policies harm state economies, dismantle basic public services, and exacerbate tax inequities.

  • blog  August 18, 2021

    State Rundown 8/18: End of Summer Tax Update

    Summer is quickly (and sadly) coming to an end and if you’ve been away enjoying the great outdoors or off the grid, we’re here to help keep you up to date on what’s been happening on the tax front around the country…

  • blog  August 6, 2021

    State Experimentation with Sales Tax Holidays Magnifies Their Flaws

    It’s back-to-school shopping season, so…everyone who buys a cell phone in Arkansas this weekend will do so sales-tax-free. For this whole week in Connecticut, and for the entire spring in New Mexico, the corporate owners of highly profitable multinational restaurant chains had the option to pocket their customers’ taxes rather than remit them to the state to fund vital public services, pass along those savings to their customers, or give a much-needed boost to their employees. And all told, about $550 million of state and local revenue will be forgone in 17 states this year through wasteful and poorly targeted sales tax holidays.

  • brief  August 6, 2021

    Sales Tax Holidays: An Ineffective Alternative to Real Sales Tax Reform

    Policymakers tout sales tax holidays as a way for families to save money while shopping for “essential” goods. On the surface, this sounds good. However, a two- to three-day sales tax holiday for selected items does nothing to reduce taxes for low- and moderate-income taxpayers during the other 362 days of the year. Sales taxes are inherently regressive. In the long run, sales tax holidays leave a regressive tax system unchanged, and the benefits of these holidays for working families are minimal. Sales tax holidays also fall short because they are poorly targeted, cost revenue, can easily be exploited, and create administrative difficulties.

  • blog  August 6, 2021

    Good Climate Policy Is Good Economic Policy, Too

    Congress is proving that there does not need to be a trade-off between good climate policy and good economic policy. Direct hires aside, an even bolder government-backed effort to secure the future of our planet could create as many as 25 million net new jobs at its peak, as well as 5 million permanent jobs, many of which deal directly with domestic infrastructure and cannot be outsourced. With the U.S. economy still down 5.7 million jobs from pre-pandemic levels, climate legislation can be a critical investment for jumpstarting our economic recovery.

  • blog  August 5, 2021

    Why Local Governments Need an Anti-Racist Approach to Property Assessments

    Property taxes are among the oldest and most relied upon form of local taxes. Revenue raised from these taxes funds education, firefighting, law enforcement, street and infrastructure maintenance, and other essential services. Though all members of the community enjoy these public goods, homeowners of color, especially Black families, pay more as a share of home value in property taxes than their white counterparts. 

  • blog  August 4, 2021

    State Rundown 8/4: Tis the Season...for Unnecessary Sales Tax Holidays

    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…

  • report  July 29, 2021

    Corporate Tax Avoidance Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

    Thirty-nine profitable corporations in the S&P 500 or Fortune 500 paid no federal income tax from 2018 through 2020, the first three years that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was in effect. Besides the 39 companies that paid nothing over three years, an additional 73 profitable corporations paid less than half the statutory corporate income tax rate of 21 percent established under TCJA. As a group, these 73 corporations paid an effective federal income tax rate of just 5.3 percent during these three years.

  • blog  July 23, 2021

    DC Exemplifies Trend of Tax Justice Victories on the Ground Despite Distractions in the Sky

    This month, we watched billionaire space-racers with skyrocketing fortunes literally rocket themselves into the sky to look down on us from the largest gap they…
  • blog  July 23, 2021

    The Case for Biden's Tax Agenda

    President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan is the most ambitious economic and social agenda since Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society. It would redirect policy priorities to create educational and economic opportunities for low- and middle-income people and require corporations and wealthy people to pay a fairer share of taxes.