Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP)

Pennsylvania

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State Rundown 6/22: Southern States Edition

• By ITEP Staff

With many state legislative sessions wrapped or wrapping up, we at ITEP want to take a moment to direct your attention south, and specifically, to the American South...

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State Rundown 6/15: States on Alert as Inflation Concerns Rise

• By ITEP Staff

With inflation dominating headlines both nationally and locally, state lawmakers around the U.S. are searching for ways to put their revenues to good use, and not surprisingly, some options are better than others...

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State Rundown 6/8: Tax Policy Features Prominently During Budget and Primary Season

• By ITEP Staff

As voters head to the polls to weigh in on their state’s primary elections and legislators convene to hash out budget deals, tax policy remains atop the agenda...

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State Rundown 4/27: States Remain Active on the Tax Front

• By ITEP Staff

While tax discussions among federal lawmakers continue in fits and starts, major tax news continues to make waves across the nation...

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State Rundown 4/20: New Tax Changes in Full Bloom

• By ITEP Staff

This Spring looks to be bringing a mix of showers and flowers as states around the nation continue to act on a range of tax proposals...

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State Rundown 3/23: Spring Brings More Tax Happenings

• By ITEP Staff

Spring is around the corner and like those pesky allergies that come along with it, equally pesky tax proposals continue to pop up in states across the U.S....

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State Rundown 3/16: The Scramble to Curb Rising Gas Prices is On

• By ITEP Staff

Rising gas prices have lawmakers around the country searching for ways to ease the pressure on consumers and almost half the states are considering reducing or temporarily repealing their gas tax, but another idea is taking hold...

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State Rundown 3/9: One State Stands Out Amid the Avalanche of Tax Cuts

• By ITEP Staff

The avalanche of regressive tax-cut proposals coming out of state legislatures has not slowed over the course of the winter months, but one state has provided a shot of hope to advocates of tax equity...

Pennsylvania Capital Star: GOP plan would be a tax hike for 35% of Pa. residents

March 9, 2022

The share of households facing tax hikes would vary across states, according to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, ranging from a low of about 24 percent in Washington State to high of roughly 50 percent in Mississippi, which is among the poorest states in the country. Read more

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State Rundown 3/2: State Tax News When You Need It

• By ITEP Staff

ITEP is happy to announce the launch of our new State Tax Watch page, where you can find out about the most up-to-date tax proposals and permanent legislative changes happening across the country...

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State Rundown 2/10: Dems Also Set Sights on Tax Cuts

• By ITEP Staff

While record state revenue surpluses have led to big pushes in red states to make unnecessary permanent income and corporate tax cuts, Democrats are also getting in on the tax-cut mania...

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State Rundown 2/2: The First Tax Cut Domino Falls…

• By ITEP Staff

One-time payments have become a common theme around the country, as Idaho is one of roughly eleven states with plans to provide tax relief in a similar fashion...

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State Rundown 1/26: States Offering Preview of Tax Themes and Trends for 2022

• By ITEP Staff

Governors and legislators are beginning to settle on and advance tax bills that could drastically shape the future of their states and several trends and themes are beginning to emerge...

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State Income Taxes and Racial Equity: Narrowing Racial Income and Wealth Gaps with State Personal Income Taxes

• By Carl Davis, Jessica Schieder, Marco Guzman

10 state personal income tax reforms that offer the most promising routes toward narrowing racial income and wealth gaps through the tax code.

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State Rundown 9/29: Where There’s Smoke, There’s Revenue?

• By ITEP Staff

One of the few industries to excel during the economic downturn brought on by the pandemic has been the marijuana business, and lawmakers around the country are taking notice as they try to ensure that sales in their state are both legal and subject to tax...

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State Rundown 8/4: Tis the Season…for Unnecessary Sales Tax Holidays

• By ITEP Staff

It’s beginning to look a lot like that time of year again. That’s right, it’s sales tax holiday season and states across the country are doing their best to induce spending that would probably occur regardless...

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Income Tax Increases in the President’s American Families Plan

• By ITEP Staff, Matthew Gardner, Steve Wamhoff

President Biden’s American Families Plan includes revenue-raising proposals that would affect only very high-income taxpayers.[1] The two most prominent of these proposals would restore the top personal income tax rate to 39.6 percent and eliminate tax breaks related to capital gains for millionaires. As this report explains, these proposals would affect less than 1 percent of taxpayers and would be confined almost exclusively to the richest 1 percent of Americans. The plan includes other tax…

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State Rundown 3/17: Momentum for Sound Progressive Tax Reforms Continues to Build

• By ITEP Staff

We wrote last week that the inclusion of fiscal relief for states and localities in Congress’s American Rescue Plan should free up state lawmakers’ time and attention to focus on the comprehensive reforms needed to address upside-down and inadequate tax codes, and some states are already doing just that.

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Comparing Flat-Rate Income Tax Options for Alaska

• By Carl Davis

Alaska lawmakers are facing an unprecedented fiscal crisis. The state is more dependent than any other on oil tax and royalty revenues but declines in oil prices and production levels have sapped much of the vitality of these revenue sources. One way of diversifying the state’s revenue stream and narrowing the yawning gap between state revenues and expenses would be to reinstitute a statewide personal income tax. Alaska previously levied such a tax until 1980.…

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State Rundown 2/17: Friction Over Tax Policy Still Generating Heat in Some Statehouses

• By ITEP Staff

Cold-hearted regressive tax proposals were pushed this week to cut income taxes on high-income households in states including Idaho, Montana, and West Virginia, while advocates for fair taxes and well-funded services continue to turn up the heat on taxing the richest residents in states like Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

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State Rundown 2/4: Some Lawmakers, Governors Rising to Occasion with Progressive Tax Proposals

• By ITEP Staff

States face shifting landscapes as they attempt to deal with both emergent and longstanding issues in their tax codes and budget structures. This is particularly evident in Oklahoma, where lawmakers must adjust to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that literally redraws state boundaries by recognizing the rights of indigenous communities, but is true in every state, and lawmakers in many of them are rising to the challenge. Read below and see our blog posted today…

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States Are Finally Going Bold with Progressive Tax Efforts

• By Dylan Grundman O'Neill

Advocates, lawmakers, study commissions, and even governors in some states are proposing bold tax policy reforms that look beyond pandemic-induced budget shortfalls and the “K-shaped recovery” to address underlying inequities and underfunding that gave rise to them. These efforts include proposals to: end or reverse regressive tax policies like the preferential treatment of income derived from wealth over income earned through work; restore or strengthen estate and inheritance taxes to slow the concentration of wealth…

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State Rundown 11/24: Lawmakers and Families Thankful to Be Nearing End to 2020

• By ITEP Staff

Just as people will search their hearts to give thanks this week for the small and large things that got them through a difficult year, state lawmakers are also doing their best to count their blessings while keeping fingers crossed for badly needed federal relief to give them something to be truly grateful for.

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Donald Trump and Taxes: Fast and Loose with Loopholes or Fraud?

• By Matthew Gardner

The president’s apparent abuse of everything from hair-care deductions to consulting fees for family members raises questions about whether Trump was fast and loose with tax loopholes or whether the IRS simply wasn’t enforcing the law. Either way, Trump successfully flouting or pushing the limits of the law shouldn’t come as a surprise: Congress has cut IRS funding, in real terms in each of the last 10 years.

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State Rundown 8/26: Progressive Revenue Ideas Featured in Many States’ Fiscal Debates

• By ITEP Staff

Voters could significantly change the tax landscape through ballot measures this November regarding oil taxes in Alaska and a high-income surcharge for education funding in Arizona. Legislators are doing their part to bring progressive tax ideas to the fore as well, including a possible wealth tax in California, a millionaires tax in New Jersey, and a pied-a-terre proposal in New York. And Nebraska lawmakers reached a property tax and business tax subsidy compromise before closing…