Indiana
Indianapolis Star: Raise taxes on Indiana’s wealthy
January 19, 2016
“According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy the bottom 20% of Indiana taxpayers pay an average effective overall tax rate of around 12%. The top 1% of Indiana taxpayers pays an effective overall tax rate of around 5.2%. The taxes included in these percentages include income tax, excise tax, sales tax on individuals […]
WTHR: WalletHub survey puts Indiana near bottom of state tax fairness list
October 5, 2015
“A new survey by WalletHub finds that even though Americans – no matter their political orientation – largely support a progressive tax structure where the burden of taxes increases with income. But in reality, it’s the opposite at the state and local levels. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy’s data shows that the lowest […]
Bloomberg BNA: Individual Income Tax Insights: Fifty States of Rates – State Tax Systems Don’t Play Fair
September 15, 2015
“All state tax systems are inherently unfair, at least that is the verdict issued by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). ITEP’s 2015 Who Pays: A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All Fifty States report analyzed state and local tax systems to assess the fairness with which each system is designed […]
Indianapolis Star: Transportation Funding at a Crossroads in Indiana
September 8, 2015
“Families today are spending a smaller share of their household budgets on gas taxes than they have in about three decades, and they are receiving a lower-quality transportation network in return,” according to a report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonpartisan group that studies federal, state and local tax policy. Read […]
CNBC: Is Your State a Gas Tax Winner–Or Loser?
July 22, 2015
As states from Connecticut to California scramble to find money to fix crumbling highways, Congress once again is expected this week to put a short-term patch on the nearly insolvent federal highway trust fund. To make up the shortfall, Congress has transferred more than $53 billion from other tax revenue over the past five years, […]
Cheat Sheet: 10 Worst States in America for Fair Tax Systems
July 13, 2015
Americans generally believe that higher income households should pay a greater percentage of their incomes in taxes than lower income households. Yet the exact opposite occurs. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) finds the nationwide average effective state and local tax rates by income group are 10.9% for the poorest 20% of individuals […]
Read this report in PDF form Introduction For years, academics and transportation experts have been discussing the possibility of taxing drivers for each mile they travel on the nation’s roads. This “vehicle miles traveled tax” (VMT tax) could either supplement or replace the existing gas tax as the primary method of funding transportation infrastructure. To […]
Daily Journal: Indexes unveil winners, losers under tax policy
May 1, 2015
We’re less familiar with a different ranking of state taxes by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. It ranks state tax systems based on their effects on the distribution of income. It doesn’t like Indiana very much. We’re 42nd on the 2015 list. According to the institute, in every state lower-income people pay a […]
Undocumented Immigrants’ State & Local Tax Contributions (2015)
April 15, 2015 • By Matthew Gardner, Meg Wiehe
This report was updated February 2016 Read as a PDF. (Includes Full Appendix of State-by-State Data) Report Landing Page In the public debates over federal immigration reform, sufficient and accurate information about the tax contributions of undocumented immigrants is often lacking. The reality is the 11.4 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States pay billions […]
South Bend Tribune: Falling Behind
March 16, 2015
In fact, a new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy concludes that low- and middle-income taxpayers pay more than their fair share of Indiana taxes. Middle-income taxpayers, those making between $34,000 and $56,000, pay 10.8 percent of their income in Indiana state and local taxes. Taxpayers making between $19,000 and $34,000 pay 11.1 percent, and […]
An updated version of this report has been published with data through July 1, 2017. Read the report in PDF form. Many states’ transportation budgets are in disarray, in part because they are trying to cover the rising cost of asphalt, machinery, and other construction materials with a gasoline tax rate that is rarely increased.1 […]
Major tax overhauls are on the agenda in a record number of states, and “Who Pays?” documents in state-by-state detail the precise distribution of state income taxes, sales and excise taxes and property taxes paid by each income group as of January 2013. It is a critical baseline against which future proposals can be measured. […]
The Journal Gazette: Progress on Regressive Taxes
January 26, 2015
Indiana has the 10th most regressive tax structure in the nation, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Households in the lowest percentile, excluding seniors, pay 12 percent of annual income on state and local taxes. The top 1 percent pay just 5.2 percent. Indiana’s flat income tax rate of 3.4 percent “taxes […]
Slate: Republicans Are Finally Talking About Income Inequality
January 24, 2015
The problem is that this shifts the tax burden from the top to the bottom. In other words, it’s upward redistribution of wealth that harms the least well-off. And while the vast majority of states have tax systems that hit low-income Americans the hardest, these effects are worst in conservative states, where the highest tax […]
Indiana Institute for Working Families: The Status of Working Families in Indiana – 2015
January 20, 2015
The Status of Working Families is a biennial report that analyzes the general state of Indiana’s economy as it relates to working families by examining data on poverty, labor force and wages, followed by working-family friendly policy options. This year, our report offers access to the data, online and interactively, for users who wish to […]
Salon: Defiant Sam Brownback vows to move toward zero income tax — and make Kansas even more unequal
January 16, 2015
“A study released this week underscores one of the most pernicious effects of such a tax regime: It exacerbates inequality. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that “[v]irtually every state’s tax system is fundamentally unfair,” with state and local taxes eating disproportionately into lower-income workers’ wages. But the effect was far worse in […]
ABC (Michigan Affiliate WZZM): Gas Tax 101
December 3, 2014
Carl Davis, a senior analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy in Washington, D.C., said Michigan is one of only four states, with Indiana, Illinois and Hawaii, that fully apply their general sales tax to fuel sales. Of the 41.4 cents in state taxes Michigan motorists pay on a gallon of fuel, only […]
WBAA: Think Tank Questions Effort to Eliminate Business Personal Property Tax
October 28, 2014
Matt Gardner with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy says property taxes nationwide are increasingly limited to real property. But he says for equipment that has significant value to a business‘s profit-making ability, it makes sense to tax that equipment. “It’s a rough proxy for the benefits you derive from government services,” says Gardner. […]
New York Times: The State-by-State Revival of the Right
October 10, 2014
In an analysis of how the Indiana cuts are distributed by income groups, the liberal Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that the bottom 20 percent are getting an average cut of $10, those in the middle are getting $56, while the top 1 percent get $1,181. Read more
For much of the last century, estate and inheritance taxes have played an important role in helping states to adequately fund public services in a way that improves the progressivity of state tax systems. While many of the taxes levied by state and local governments fall most heavily on low-income families, only the very wealthy pay estate and inheritance taxes. Recent changes in the federal estate tax, however, culminating in the "fiscal cliff " deal of early 2013, have forced states to reevaluate the structure of their estate and inheritance taxes. Unfortunately, the trend of late has tended toward weakening…
The gasoline tax is the single largest source of funding for transportation infrastructure in the United States, but the tax is on an unsustainable course. Sluggish gas tax revenue growth has put strain on transportation budgets at the federal and state levels, and has led to countless debates around the country about how best to pay for America's infrastructure.
Detroit Free Press: Why Michiganders Pay Among the Highest Gas Tax to Drive on Crummy Roads
May 23, 2014
By Paul Egan, May 23, 2014 High fuel taxes and low spending on roads. It’s a nasty combination, but Michigan motorists can rightfully complain they pay some of the highest fuel taxes to drive on some of the lousiest roads. According to national data, Michigan has the sixth-highest state taxes on gasoline but one of […]
Idaho Statesman: Tax breaks to lure business do little to spur Idaho’s growth
April 17, 2014
(Original Post) BY PETER R. CRABB Professor of finance and economics at Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa April 16, 2014 Earlier this month, Idaho Gov. Butch Otter signed a new state law that will refund up to 30 percent of state corporate income taxes, payroll taxes and sales taxes for any business that creates 50 […]
Life of the Law Podcast: Episode 31 – People and Their Taxes
April 9, 2014
(Original Post) Written by Alisa Roth & LOTL Staff on Tuesday, April 8th, 2014 Clara Orozco got her first job, waiting tables, three days after she arrived in New York from Mexico. Since then, she’s worked as a cashier at McDonald’s, painted nails, and cleaned houses. And every year, whether she’s been paid by cash […]
Wall Street Journal: States Raise Gas Taxes to Pay for Infrastructure
April 7, 2014
(Original Post) As Congress Only Takes Short-Term Steps, Governors Seek More Funds for Roads By JOSH MITCHELL Updated April 4, 2014 7:32 p.m. ET GEORGETOWN, Del.—States and cities desperate to build and repair roads and other infrastructure—but frustrated by inertia in Congress—are raising their own levies and turning to private companies for funding. Six states […]
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