Quartz: The obscure tax rule that’s stopping US states from paying teachers more

When lawmakers do gather enough votes to raise tax revenues, it is usually for “low hanging fruit” like cigarette taxes or a sales tax, said Meg Wielhe, the deputy director for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a tax research group. These increases “definitely fall more heavily on low-income families,” she said, which can means they pay a greater percentage of their income in tax overall. Read more