California
State and Local Tax Contributions of Undocumented Californians: County-by- County Data
• By ITEP Staff
Public debates in California over immigrants, specifically around undocumented immigrants, often suffer from insufficient and inaccurate information about the contributions of undocumented immigrants, particularly their tax contributions at the local and state level. The fact of the matter is undocumented immigrants living in the California pay millions of dollars each year in local taxes to the counties where they live (estimated to be more than $1.5 billion) and collectively an estimated $3 billion combined in…
Dylan Grundman O’Neill
• By ITEP Staff
Dylan is the “coach on the floor” of the ITEP state policy team. He provides hands-on analysis and support on tax policy issues to advocates and lawmakers in several states. He also supports and vets the work of ITEP's other state policy analysts as they do the same in their states, and he liaises between the state team and the data and model team to ensure quality and consistency in how ITEP models policies and…
California Budget & Policy Center: California Should Do More to Raise Awareness of the California Earned Income Tax Credit (CalEITC)
• By ITEP Staff
The California Earned Income Tax Credit (CalEITC), established in 2015, is a refundable state tax credit that helps low-earning workers and their families make ends meet and build toward economic security.[1] Yet, fewer than 1 in 5 visitors to county human services offices who were likely eligible for this new tax credit had heard of […]
California Budget & Policy Center: This Tax Day, Celebrating a Tax Credit That Broadens Prosperity
• By ITEP Staff
With Tax Day — the deadline for filing personal income taxes — coming up next Tuesday, it’s a good time to reflect on the purpose of our tax system. As we pointed out in Who Pays Taxes in California?, tax policy is not only a means to an end, allowing us to collectively generate the […]
Fifteen (of Many) Reasons We Need Corporate Tax Reform
• By Matthew Gardner
Profitable Fortune 500 companies in a range of economic sectors have been remarkably successful in manipulating the tax system to avoid paying even a dime in tax on billions of dollars in U.S. profits. This ITEP report examines a select, diverse group of 15 corporations' tax situations to shed light on the widespread nature of corporate tax avoidance. As a group, these companies paid no federal income tax on $21 billion in profits in 2016,…
Tax Justice Digest: Offshore Cash, Gas Tax and BAT
• By ITEP Staff
In the Tax Justice Digest we recap the latest reports, blog posts, and analyses from Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Here’s a rundown of what we’ve been working on lately. Corporations Offshore Cash Hoard Grows to $2.6 Trillion U.S. corporations now hold a record $2.6 trillion offshore, a […]
International Business Times: Republican Health Care Plan: Trumpcare Gives Wealthiest 1% A $31B Taxcut
March 31, 2017
The wealthiest Americans will see the biggest benefit from the Republican plan to repeal the tax on investments and additional Medicare tax in the Republican American Health Care Act, a state-by-state analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy indicates, with California and the District of Columbia the biggest winners. The analysis indicated the […]
What to Watch in the States: State Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC) on the Move
• By Misha Hill
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 Income Tax Credit (EITC). Federal lawmakers established the in 1975 to bolster the earnings of low-wage workers, especially workers with children and offset some of […]
Kentucky Center for Economic Policy: Tiny Fraction of Wealthiest Kentuckians Gain from Tax Cuts in Health Repeal
• By ITEP Staff
The House plan to repeal healthcare reform, known as the American Health Care Act (AHCA), provides a tax cut to the wealthiest people while reducing the number of Americans with health coverage by an estimated 24 million, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Because Kentucky has relatively few high earners, we benefit even less from the […]
State Rundown 3/15: Responses to Revenue Shortfalls Vary Widely
• By ITEP Staff
State tax debates have been very active this week. Efforts to eliminate the income tax continue in West Virginia. Policymakers in many states are responding to revenue shortfalls in very different ways: some in Iowa, Mississippi, and Nebraska seek to dig the hole even deeper with tax cuts, while the Missouri House’s response has been […]
Daily Bulletin: Undocumented immigrants contribute billions in local, state taxes
March 8, 2017
Undocumented residents in the United States pay an estimated $11.74 billion annually in state and local taxes, an amount that would increase significantly if these immigrants were given a pathway to citizenship, according to a new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. On average, the nation’s estimated 11 million undocumented residents pay […]
Yes, They Pay: Updated Report Finds Undocumented Immigrants Annually Pay $11.74 Billion in State and Local Taxes
• By ITEP Staff
A newly updated report released today provides data that helps dispute the erroneous idea espoused during President Trump’s address to Congress that undocumented immigrants are a drain to taxpayers. In fact, like all others living and working in the United States, undocumented immigrants are taxpayers too and collectively contribute an estimated $11.74 billion to state […]
Undocumented Immigrants’ State & Local Tax Contributions
• By Lisa Christensen Gee, Meg Wiehe, Misha Hill
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…
What to Watch in the States: Gas Tax Hikes and Swaps
• By Carl Davis
This is the second installment of our six part series on 2017 state tax trends. The introduction to this series is available here. State tax policy can be a divisive issue, but no area has generated more agreement among lawmakers across the country than the need to raise new revenues to fund infrastructure improvements. The […]
State Tax & Revenue Information
• By ITEP Staff
Below is a list of notable resources for information on state taxes and revenues: Alabama Alabama Department of Revenue Alabama Department of Finance – Executive Budget Office Alabama Department of Revenue – Tax Incentives for Industry Alabama Legislative Fiscal Office Alaska Alaska Department of Revenue – Tax Division Alaska Office of Management & Budget Alaska […]
What to Watch in the States Series: Tax Policy 2017
• By Lisa Christensen Gee
Over the next few weeks we will be blogging about what we’re watching in state tax policy during 2017 legislative sessions. In this “What to Watch in the States” series, we will look at the following: State responses to short- and long-term revenue deficits Boosting funding for infrastructure, though sometimes at the expense of other […]
Fairness Matters: A Chart Book on Who Pays State and Local Taxes
• By Carl Davis, Meg Wiehe
When states shy away from personal income taxes in favor of higher sales and excise taxes, high-income taxpayers benefit at the expense of low- and moderate-income families who often face above-average tax rates to pick up the slack. This chart book demonstrates this basic reality by examining the distribution of taxes in states that have pursued these types of policies. Given the detrimental impact that regressive tax policies have on economic opportunity, income inequality, revenue…
State Rundown 1/25: Revenue Shortfalls and How to Avoid Them
• By ITEP Staff
This week brings more news of states facing budget crunches, a new state looking to eliminate income taxes, and plans to raise gas taxes to fund transportation projects. Be sure to check out the What We’re Reading section for a look at how repealing federal health reform could add to those crunches and a review […]
The Arizona Center for Economic Progress: Arizona’s State Budget and Taxes: What Every Arizonan Needs to Know About Growing Our Economy
• By ITEP Staff
When all types of state and local taxes are combined—income, sales and property—families with incomes in the bottom fifth pay nearly three times what families in the top 1 percent do—$12.50 for every $100 of income compared to $4.58 for the highest income families and $8.20 for middle income families. Sales taxes make up the […]
California Budget & Policy Center: Should California Maintain Higher Taxes on the Wealthiest to Fund Education, Health Care, and Other Services?
• By ITEP Staff
“Proposition 30, approved by voters in 2012, provided critical revenues to California at a time when the state faced daunting budgetary challenges. Prop. 30’s tax rate increases are scheduled to fully expire at the end of 2018. Prop. 55, which will appear on the November 8, 2016 statewide ballot, would extend for 12 years the […]
California Budget & Policy Center: What Has Proposition 30 Meant for California?
• By ITEP Staff
Proposition 30, approved by voters in 2012, provided critical revenues to California at a time when the state faced daunting fi scal challenges. These revenues increased school funding and allowed for reinvestment in other public services after years of cuts. Prop. 30’s tax rate increases are scheduled to expire over the next several years. Although […]
Accounting Today: Voices Immigration reform could help states seeking additional revenues
January 3, 2017
“The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank, proposed that state and local governments could significantly increase revenue collection by legalizing undocumented immigrants. A report released in February by ITEP noted that undocumented immigrants collectively pay an estimated $11.64 billion a year. The state of California, home to more than 3 […]
Denver Post: CDOT to test taxing drivers by the mile instead of at the pump
November 14, 2016
“Carl Davis, research director at the Washington, D.C.-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said it’s true that state governments will have to find alternate ways of generating revenues for road projects as more cars go hybrid and electric. And he lauds Colorado, Oregon and California for testing the per-mile tax concept for the day […]
The Short and Sweet on Taxing Soda
• By Carl Davis, Misha Hill
The concept of taxing sodas and other sugary beverages has gained traction recently across the United States and around the world. The World Health Organization officially recommended a tax on sugar sweetened beverages as a way to battle the obesity epidemic. In the US, multiple states and localities have looked to taxes on sugar sweetened beverages as a way to improve public health and increase revenue. In 2014, Berkeley, California became the first U.S. locality…
Cigarette Taxes: Issues and Options
• By Aidan Davis
Efforts to increase taxes usually face some opposition, particularly increases to broad-based taxes such as the sales or income tax. Yet in many states, lawmakers have been able to agree on one approach to revenue-raising: the cigarette tax. Since 2002, nearly every state has enacted a cigarette tax in-crease to fund health care, discourage smoking, or to help balance state budgets. This policy brief looks at the advantages and disadvantages of cigarette taxes, and cigarette…
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