The Montana Senate this week stopped a bill to restructure the state’s temporary tribal tax exemption program, making tribal governments the only sovereignties on which Montana levies a tax and making it more difficult for leaders to buy back illegally seized land. Still, the success of the bill in the House is troubling.
Misha Hill
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blog April 12, 2019 You Can’t Tax Stolen Land
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ITEP Work in Action April 10, 2019 The DC Line: – David Schwartzman: By Offsetting Federal Tax Cuts Locally, We Can Improve the Quality of Life for All DC Residents
Misha Hill of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) has estimated that the top 20 percent income bracket of DC residents will receive almost $700 million in federal… -
blog March 22, 2019 Unfair State Tax Codes Also Exacerbate Racial Inequity
A 2019 ITEP analysis found that Black and Latinx households are overrepresented in the lowest-income quintiles; while they represent about 22 percent of overall tax returns, they account for 30 percent of the poorest quintile of taxpayers.
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report February 14, 2019 The Illusion of Race-Neutral Tax Policy
It is well known that the bulk of the federal tax cuts flowed to the highest-earning households, who received the largest tax cut both in terms of real dollars and also as a share of income. But as our analysis with Prosperity Now reveals, solely examining the tax law in the context of class misses a bigger-picture story about how the nation’s public policies not only perpetuate widening income and wealth inequality, they also preserve historic and current injustices that continue to allow white communities to build wealth while denying the same level of opportunity (and often suppressing it) to communities of color.
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report January 23, 2019 Taxing Cannabis
State policy toward cannabis is evolving rapidly. While much of the debate around legalization has rightly focused on potential health and criminal justice impacts, legalization also has revenue implications for state and local governments that choose to regulate and tax cannabis sales. This report describes the various options for structuring state and local taxes on cannabis and identifies approaches currently in use. It also undertakes an in-depth exploration of state cannabis tax revenue performance and offers a glimpse into what may lie ahead for these taxes.
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blog September 20, 2018 State Tax Codes Can Help Mitigate Poverty and Impact of Federal Tax Cuts on Low- and Middle-Income Families
The national poverty rate declined by 0.4 percentage points to 12.3 percent in 2017. According to the U.S. Census, this was not a statistically significant change from the previous year.… -
report September 17, 2018 State Tax Codes as Poverty Fighting Tools: 2018 Update on Four Key Policies in All 50 States
This report presents a comprehensive overview of anti-poverty tax policies, surveys tax policy decisions made in the states in 2018, and offers recommendations that every state should consider to help families rise out of poverty. States can jumpstart their anti-poverty efforts by enacting one or more of four proven and effective tax strategies to reduce the share of taxes paid by low- and moderate-income families: state Earned Income Tax Credits, property tax circuit breakers, targeted low-income credits, and child-related tax credits.
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blog August 15, 2018 1964: Unconditional War on Poverty; 2018: Unconditional War on the Poor
During his first State of the Union address in January 1964, Lyndon Baines Johnson declared a War on Poverty in response to a national poverty rate of more than 19… -
blog June 13, 2018 All Bets are Off: State-Sponsored Sports Betting Isn’t Worth the Risk
Many state legislators and regulators are considering expanding state-sponsored gambling by allowing betting on major league sports games. But the revenue states could bring in isn’t worth the risk.
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blog May 4, 2018 In the Face of the Trump Administration’s Anti-Immigrant Agenda, We Must Rely on Evidence to Highlight the Contributions of and Dispel Myths About Dreamers
Immigrants face tremendous uncertainty and little hope under the Trump Administration. The administration’s actions—banning travel from residents of primarily Muslim countries, the deportation of Christian Iraqi asylum seekers, and the… -
report April 30, 2018 State & Local Tax Contributions of Young Undocumented Immigrants
This report specifically examines the state and local tax contributions of undocumented immigrants who are currently enrolled or immediately eligible for DACA and the fiscal implications of various policy changes. The report includes information on the national impact (Chart 1) and provides a state-by-state breakdown (Appendices 1 and 2).
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blog April 27, 2018 Trump Administration’s Spending Priorities Echo Tax Cut Priorities: Punish the Poor and Lavish the Rich
In 2017, the Trump Administration released a budget proposal filled with loaded language about “welfare reform” and moving able-bodied people from welfare to work. This narrative is designed to perpetuate the pernicious idea that poor people have personal shortcomings and are taking something that rightly belongs to others.
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blog April 20, 2018 Trends We’re Watching in 2018, Part 5: 21st Century Consumption Taxes
We’re highlighting the progress of a few newer trends in consumption taxation. This includes using the tax code to discourage consumption of everything from plastic bags to carbon and collecting revenue from emerging industries like ride sharing services and legalized cannabis sales.
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blog January 16, 2018 We Must Protect Dreamers
Last week, a federal court judge in California ruled that the Trump administration cannot end DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) while the case works its way through the courts. Although this is reassuring news for the roughly 685,000 young people currently enrolled or seeking renewals for their DACA status it does not extend protections to new applicants, and it does not lessen the need for congressional action to protect Dreamers.
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blog December 13, 2017 All I Want for Christmas is a Clean DREAM Act
As 2017 draws to close, Congress has yet to take legislative action to protect Dreamers. The young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children, and are largely working or in school, were protected by President Obama’s 2012 executive action, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). But in September, President Trump announced that he would end DACA in March 2018. Instead of honoring the work authorizations and protection from deportation that currently shields more than 685,000 young people, President Trump punted their lives and livelihood to a woefully divided Congress which is expected to take up legislation to address the issue this month.
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blog September 15, 2017 Poverty is Down, But State Tax Codes Could Bring It Even Lower
The U.S. Census Bureau released its annual data on income, poverty and health insurance coverage this week. For the second consecutive year, the national poverty rate declined and the well-being of America’s most economically vulnerable has generally improved. In 2016, the year of the latest available data, 40.6 million (or nearly 1 in 8) Americans were living in poverty.
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blog May 26, 2017 Besides Eviscerating the Safety Net, Trump Budget Would Put States in a Fiscal Bind
There has been considerable discussion about the human impact of the Trump budget’s draconian cuts to what remains of the social safety net. A long-standing conservative talking point in response to such criticism is that states can pick up the tab when federal dollars disappear. But at a time when many states are facing budget shortfalls and the effect of federal tax reform is yet to be determined, it is outlandish to suggest that states are flush with cash to make up for federal spending reductions.
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blog May 23, 2017 Trump Budget Plan Would Eliminate Child Tax Credits for Working Families Due to Parents’ Immigration Status
As ITEP has detailed, undocumented immigrants are taxpayers, contributing close to $12 billion a year in state and local taxes while also paying federal payroll, income, and excise taxes. In spite of these facts, Mick Mulvaney, President Trump’s budget director, has spread erroneous information to validate the administration’s cruel proposal to strip a proven anti-poverty benefit from undocumented immigrants and their children.
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report April 25, 2017 State & Local Tax Contributions of Young Undocumented Immigrants (2017)
This report specifically examines the state and local tax contributions of undocumented immigrants who are currently enrolled or immediately eligible for DACA and the fiscal implications of various policy changes. The report includes information on the national impact (Table 1) and provides a state-by-state breakdown (Appendix 1).
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blog April 25, 2017 Young Undocumented Immigrants Pay Taxes Too
A few weeks ago, a young undocumented immigrant posted a photo on Facebook after filing her taxes that went viral. The young woman, Belen Sisa, is one of 1.3 million… -
blog March 24, 2017 What to Watch in the States: State Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC) on the Move
While every state’s tax system is regressive, meaning lower income people pay a higher tax rate than the rich, some states aim to improve tax fairness through a state Earned… -
blog March 8, 2017 A Tax Perspective on International Women’s Day
Thursday, March 8 is International Women’s Day. The day draws attention to the progress that has been made and the work that still needs to be done in advancing gender… -
blog March 2, 2017 Undocumented Immigrants Pay Taxes
A newly updated ITEP report released today provides data that helps dispute the erroneous idea espoused during President Trump’s address to Congress that undocumented immigrants aren’t paying their fair share.… -
report March 1, 2017 Undocumented Immigrants’ State & Local Tax Contributions
Public debates over federal immigration reform, specifically around undocumented immigrants, often suffer from insufficient and inaccurate information about the tax contributions of undocumented immigrants, particularly at the state level. The truth is that undocumented immigrants living in the United States paybillions of dollars each year in state and local taxes. Further, these tax contributions would increase significantly if all undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States were granted a pathway to citizenship as part of comprehensive immigration reform. Or put in the reverse, if undocumented immigrants are deported in high numbers, state and local revenues could take a substantial hit.
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blog February 15, 2017 What to Watch in the States: Modernizing Sales Taxes for a 21st Century Economy
This is the fourth installment of our six-part series on 2017 state tax trends. The introduction to this series is available here. State lawmakers often find themselves looking for ways…