New Hampshire

Thank you for the opportunity to testify on the changes House Bill 36 would make to Alaska's tax treatment of pass-through income. The taxation of pass-through business entities has been a focal point of state and federal tax reform debates for over a quarter century, with a dual focus on minimizing the role of tax laws in determining the choice of business entity and on ensuring that the income of all business entities is subject to at least a minimal tax. My testimony makes two main points: 1. Alaska is one of a small number of states that do not…

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 […]

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 […]

This week brings more news of states considering reforms to their consumption taxes, on everything from gasoline in South Carolina and Tennessee, to marijuana in Pennsylvania, to groceries in Idaho and Utah, and to practically everything in West Virginia. Meanwhile, the fiscal fallout of Kansas’s failed ‘tax experiment’ has new consequences as the state’s Supreme […]

This week we are following a number of significant proposals being debated or introduced including reinstating the income tax in Alaska and eliminating the tax in West Virginia, establishing a regressive tax-cut trigger in Nebraska, restructuring the Illinois sales tax, moving New Mexico to a flat income tax and broader gross receipts tax, and updating […]

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 […]

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 adequacy, and long-run revenue sustainability, tax reform proponents should look to the least regressive, rather than most regressive, states in crafting their proposals.

This report explains the workings, and problems, with state-level tax subsidies for private K-12 education. It also discusses how the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has exacerbated some of these problems by allowing taxpayers to claim federal charitable deductions even on private school contributions that were not truly charitable in nature. Finally, an appendix to this report provides additional detail on the specific K-12 private school tax subsidies made available by each state.

A new study released today provides the best evidence yet that progressive state income taxes are not leading to any meaningful amount of “tax flight” among top earners.

Alaskans are faced with a stark fiscal reality. Following the discovery of oil in the 1960s and 1970s, state lawmakers repealed their personal income tax and began funding government primarily through oil tax and royalty revenues. For decades, oil revenues filled roughly 90 percent of the state's general fund.

An updated version of this brief was published on February 9, 2017.   Read this report in pdf. Every state levies taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel, usually just called “gas taxes.” These taxes are an important source of state revenue—particularly for transportation—but their poor design has resulted in sluggish revenue growth that fails to […]