Under a well-designed income tax based on ability to pay, it is simply not necessary to offer special tax subsidies to older adults but not younger families. At the end of the day, your income tax bill should depend on what you can afford to pay, not the year you were born. It’s really as simple as that.
Carl Davis
Carl Davis is the research director at ITEP, where he has worked since 2008. Carl works on a wide range of issues related to both state and federal tax policy. He has advised policymakers, researchers, and advocates on tax policy issues in nearly every state. Much of his work relates to the link between taxes and economic growth, and the shortcomings of dynamic scoring and supply-side economic theories.
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blog March 23, 2023 States Prioritize Old Over Young in Push for Larger Senior Tax Subsidies
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report March 23, 2023 State Income Tax Subsidies for Seniors
State governments provide a wide array of tax subsidies to their older residents. But too many of these carveouts focus on predominately wealthy and white seniors, all while the cost climbs.
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media mention March 13, 2023 Kansas Legislators’ War on the Poor Opens Worrisome New Front: School Vouchers and Tax Avoidance
Kansas legislative leaders have declared war on the poor. They have pushed bills penalizing those receiving government assistance through the House Welfare Reform Committee. They have advocated a flat tax plan that benefits… -
brief March 3, 2023 Tax Avoidance Continues to Fuel School Privatization Efforts
Wealthy families are overwhelmingly the ones using school voucher tax credits to opt out of paying for public education and other public services and to redirect their tax dollars to private and religious institutions instead. Most of these credits are being claimed by families with incomes over $200,000.
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blog February 28, 2023 Dear Ohio: Beware the Flat Tax
The flat tax plan and others being discussed that would cut even deeper would be windfalls for the wealthy, and expensive ones at that. Families with incomes over $300,000 per year, for example, could expect to gain, as a group, about a billion dollars annually under the flat tax plan. If you asked Ohio families about their top priorities for this legislative session, it’s a safe bet that very few of them would choose a billion-dollar tax cut for this group over funding for schools, parks, and infrastructure.
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media mention February 28, 2023 Wall Street Journal: New Jersey Is Latest State to Push Tax Relief Despite Economic Uncertainty
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Tuesday will propose another $2 billion in property-tax rebate checks as part of a $53 billion state budget, a state treasury official said, making it the… -
blog February 22, 2023 The Five Best Tax Ideas Coming from Governors This Year
The word “tax” appears 97 times and counting in one recent summary of governors’ addresses to state legislators so far this year. The policy visions that governors are bringing, however, vary enormously. While there’s good reason to worry about tax cuts for wealthy families and the flattening or elimination of income taxes, there are at least five great tax ideas coming directly out of governors’ offices this year.
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January 30, 2023 The Geographic Distribution of Extreme Wealth in the U.S. Excessive concentration of wealth runs counter to our national aspiration for genuine equality of opportunity, and it saps the vitality of… -
media mention January 26, 2023 Wisconsin Examiner: Tax Analyst Says Flat-Rate System Will Benefit Wealthy at the Expense of the Majority
The wealthiest Wisconsin residents already pay a smaller share of their incomes in state taxes than the rest of the population, and replacing the state’s current graduated-rate income tax structure… -
brief January 17, 2023 The Pitfalls of Flat Income Taxes
Flat taxes have some surface appeal but come with significant disadvantages. Critically, a flat tax guarantees that wealthy families’ total state and local tax bill will be a lower share of their income than that paid by families of more modest means.
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media mention January 4, 2023 Vox: The Ultrarich are Getting Cozy in America’s Tax Havens at Everyone Else’s Expense
More states are slashing or eliminating taxes, lessening the burden mostly for the wealthy. What does that cost the rest of us? Read more. -
media mention November 11, 2022 Policy for the People Podcast: Our Labor, Their Fortunes: Billionaires Capture Oregon’s Wealth
Wealth inequality is at mind-boggling levels in Oregon and elsewhere. Listen to Research Director Carl Davis talk about the trends here. -
blog October 31, 2022 Tax Foundation’s ‘State Business Tax Climate Index’ Bears Little Connection to Business Reality
The big problem with the Index is that it peddles a solution that not only falls short of the goal of generating business investment, but one that actively harms state lawmakers’ ability to provide the kinds of public goods – like good schools and modern, efficient transportation networks – that businesses need and want.
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media mention October 13, 2022 Insider: These Are the Wealthiest US States, According to a New Report — and a Wealth Tax on the Country’s Richest Would Raise $415 Billion
Wealth inequality has been on the rise over the last few decades, and some states have residents sitting on a whole lot of cash. A new report from the Institute on… -
report October 13, 2022 The Geographic Distribution of Extreme Wealth in the U.S.
More than one in four dollars of wealth in the U.S. is held by a tiny fraction of households with net worth over $30 million. Nationally, we estimate that wealth over $30 million per household will reach $26 trillion in 2022 with roughly one-fifth of that amount ($4.5 trillion) held by billionaires.
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media mention September 3, 2022 Yahoo: Handful of States Debate Whether to Tax Forgiven Student Loans
A handful of states could still end up taxing President Biden’s recently announced student loan forgiveness of up to $20,000. Read more. -
blog June 10, 2022 Rising Prices: Another Reason to Be Wary of Tax Cutting Right Now
Many state lawmakers see any economic challenge as an excuse to cut taxes and in 2022, some are citing inflation as a reason to do so. All eyes today are… -
media mention June 2, 2022 Wall Street Journal: States Help Business Owners Save Billions in Federal Taxes
“That’s logical from any individual state’s perspective, but in the big national scheme of things, it’s hard to see how this is a good thing,” said Carl Davis, research director… -
media mention April 27, 2022 The Hill: Pot taxes surpass those from alcohol in legalization states
The report, from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, found the 11 states where marijuana is legal pulled in just shy of $3 billion in excise taxes on pot… -
blog April 19, 2022 Cannabis Taxes Outraised Alcohol by 20 Percent in States with Legal Sales Last Year
In 2021, the 11 states that allowed legal sales within their borders raised nearly $3 billion in cannabis excise tax revenue, an increase of 33 percent compared to a year earlier. While the tax remains a small part of state budgets, it’s beginning to eclipse other “sin taxes” that states have long had on the books.
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media mention March 30, 2022 WVTF Radio: A gas tax holiday may not lead to savings for Virginia drivers
About a third of the savings will go to the oil industry, according to research into how this worked when Indiana and Illinois had a gas tax holiday. But that… -
blog March 16, 2022 State Gas Tax Holidays are Nothing to Celebrate
It’s unlikely that state gas tax holidays will meaningfully benefit consumers, and they come with risks for states’ infrastructure quality.
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media mention December 21, 2021 Zero Hedge: American “Super Rich” Feel “Immense Relief” As ‘BBB’ Tax Hikes Are Canceled
Of course, a bunch of admittedly left-leaning economists say the Democrats’ plan would help “reduce inequality.” Though many of Democrats’ more radical tax proposals were scaled back or dropped in… -
media mention December 20, 2021 Bloomberg: Super-Rich Americans Feel Relief as Tax Hikes Canceled for Now
Though many of Democrats’ more radical tax proposals were scaled back or dropped in negotiations, the bill would be “a meaningful step for reducing inequality,” said Carl Davis, research director… -
media mention December 10, 2021 Bloomberg: SALT Debate Forces Rich Americans to Confront Widening Tax Gap
Lawmakers in Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio and Oklahoma have also approved cuts to their top personal income tax going into effect either this year…