South Carolina
Benefits of GOP-Trump Framework Tilted Toward the Richest Taxpayers in Each State
• By Steve Wamhoff
The “tax reform framework” released by the Trump administration and Congressional Republican leaders on September 27 would affect states differently, but every state would see its richest residents grow richer if it is enacted. In all but a handful of states, at least half of the tax cuts would flow to the richest one percent of residents if the framework took effect.
GOP-Trump Tax Framework Would Provide Richest One Percent in South Carolina with 57.1 Percent of the State’s Tax Cuts
• By ITEP Staff
The “tax reform framework” released by the Trump administration and congressional Republican leaders on September 27 would not benefit everyone in South Carolina equally. The richest one percent of South Carolina residents would receive 57.1 percent of the tax cuts within the state under the framework in 2018. These households are projected to have an income of at least $478,100 next year. The framework would provide them an average tax cut of $52,250 in 2018,…
Poverty is Down, But State Tax Codes Could Bring It Even Lower
• By Misha Hill
The U.S. Census Bureau released its annual data on income, poverty and health insurance coverage this week. For the second consecutive year, the national poverty rate declined and the well-being of America’s most economically vulnerable has generally improved. In 2016, the year of the latest available data, 40.6 million (or nearly 1 in 8) Americans were living in poverty.
State Tax Codes as Poverty Fighting Tools
• By ITEP Staff
Astonishingly, tax policies in virtually every state make it harder for those living in poverty to make ends meet. When all the taxes imposed by state and local governments are taken into account, every state imposes higher effective tax rates on poor families than on the richest taxpayers.
Rewarding Work Through State Earned Income Tax Credits in 2017
• By ITEP Staff
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a policy designed to bolster the earnings of low-wage workers and offset some of the taxes they pay, providing the opportunity for struggling families to step up and out of poverty toward meaningful economic security. The federal EITC has kept millions of Americans out of poverty since its enactment in the mid-1970s. Over the past several decades, the effectiveness of the EITC has been magnified as many states…
Private School Voucher Credits Offer a Windfall to Wealthy Investors in Some States
• By Carl Davis
State lawmakers who want to send public dollars to private schools have devised a shrewd tactic for getting around political and constitutional obstacles that make it difficult to do so. These lawmakers found a way to pay high-income taxpayers to fund those schools on states’ behalf, sometimes even offering those taxpayers a tidy profit in […]
State Rundown 8/23: Few Lingering Budget Debates Cannot Linger Much Longer
• By ITEP Staff
This week, Oklahoma lawmakers learned they'll need to enter a special session to balance their budget and that they'll likely face a lawsuit over their low funding of public education. Pennsylvania's budget stalemate is also coming to a head as the state literally runs out of funds to pay its bills. And Amazon's tax practices are in the news again as the company has been sued in South Carolina.
The Epoch Times: Trump Targets Amazon Over Sales Tax and Retail Jobs
August 23, 2017
More than half of items sold on Amazon are coming through third-party retailers, according to a CNBC report. These retailers can benefit from Amazon’s facilities or payment system, but they are not required to collect sales tax. It is still a pending issue and a meaningful revenue loss for states, said Carl Davis, research director […]
Nearly Half of Trump’s Proposed Tax Cuts Go to People Making More than $1 Million Annually
• By ITEP Staff
A tiny fraction of the U.S. population (one-half of one percent) earns more than $1 million annually. But in 2018 this elite group would receive 48.8 percent of the tax cuts proposed by the Trump administration. A much larger group, 44.6 percent of Americans, earn less than $45,000, but would receive just 4.4 percent of the tax cuts.
In South Carolina 25.8 Percent of Trump’s Proposed Tax Cuts Go to People Making More than $1 Million
• By ITEP Staff
A tiny fraction of the South Carolina population (0.2 percent) earns more than $1 million annually. But this elite group would receive 25.8 percent of the tax cuts that go to South Carolina residents under the tax proposals from the Trump administration. A much larger group, 49.4 percent of the state, earns less than $45,000, but would receive just 6.4 percent of the tax cuts.
It’s a Fact: Voucher Tax Credits Offer Profits for Some “Donors”
• By Carl Davis
In nine states, tax rewards gained by donating to fund private K-12 vouchers are so oversized that “donors” can turn a profit. This is the shocking but true finding of a pair of studies released by ITEP over the last year.
State Rundown 7/27: State Legislative Debates Winding Down but Tax Talk Continues
• By ITEP Staff
While only a few states still remain mired in overtime budget debates, there is plenty of budget and tax news from around the country this week. Efforts are underway to repeal gas tax increases in California and challenge a local income tax in Seattle, Washington. And New Jersey legislators' law to modernize its tax code to tax Airbnb rentals has been vetoed for now.
Trump Touts Tax Cuts for the Wealthy as a Plan for Working People
• By Steve Wamhoff
Unless the administration takes a radically different direction on tax reform from what it has already proposed, its tax plan would be a monumental giveaway to the top 1 percent. The wealthiest one percent of households would receive 61 percent of all the Trump tax breaks, and would receive an average of $145,400 in 2018 alone.
Sound Tax Policy Made a Comeback in 2017
• By ITEP Staff
2017 marked a sea change in state tax policy and a stark departure from the current federal tax debate as dubious supply-side economic theories began to lose their grip on statehouses. Compared to the predominant trend in recent years of emphasizing top-heavy income tax cuts and shifting to more regressive consumption taxes in the hopes […]
Rewarding Work Through State Earned Income Tax Credits
• By Aidan Davis
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a policy designed to bolster the earnings of low-wage workers and offset some of the taxes they pay, providing the opportunity for struggling families to step up and out of poverty toward meaningful economic security. The federal EITC has kept millions of Americans out of poverty since its enactment in the mid-1970s. Over the past several decades, the effectiveness of the EITC has been magnified as many states…
50-State Analysis of Trump’s Tax Outline: Poorer Taxpayers and Poorer States are Disadvantaged
• By Alan Essig
Not only would President Trump’s proposed tax plan fail to deliver on its promise of largely helping middle-class taxpayers, it also would shower a disproportionate share of the total tax cut on taxpayers in some of the richest states while southern and a few other states would receive a smaller share of the tax cut […]
Trump Tax Proposals Would Provide Richest One Percent in South Carolina with 49.5 Percent of the State’s Tax Cuts
• By ITEP Staff
Earlier this year, the Trump administration released some broadly outlined proposals to overhaul the federal tax code. Households in South Carolina would not benefit equally from these proposals. The richest one percent of the state’s taxpayers are projected to make an average income of $1,134,000 in 2018.
Trump’s $4.8 Trillion Tax Proposals Would Not Benefit All States or Taxpayers Equally
• By Matthew Gardner, Steve Wamhoff
The broadly outlined tax proposals released by the Trump administration would not benefit all taxpayers equally and they would not benefit all states equally either. Several states would receive a share of the total resulting tax cuts that is less than their share of the U.S. population. Of the dozen states receiving the least by this measure, seven are in the South. The others are New Mexico, Oregon, Maine, Idaho and Hawaii.
State Rundown 7/11: Some Legislatures Get Long Holiday Weekends, Others Work Overtime
• By ITEP Staff
Illinois and New Jersey made national news earlier this month after resolving their contentious budget stalemates. But they weren’t the only states working through (and in some cases after) the holiday weekend to resolve budget issues.
Gas Taxes Will Rise in 7 States to Fund Transportation Improvements
• By Carl Davis
Summer gas prices are at their lowest level in twelve years, which makes right now a sensible time to ask drivers to pay a little more toward improving the transportation infrastructure they use every day. Seven states will be doing this on Saturday, July 1 when they raise their gasoline tax rates. At the same time, two states will be implementing small gas tax rate cuts.
How Long Has It Been Since Your State Raised Its Gas Tax?
• By Carl Davis
Many state governments are struggling to repair and expand their transportation infrastructure because they are attempting to cover the rising cost of asphalt, machinery, and other construction materials with fixed-rate gasoline taxes that are rarely increased.
Scripps News Service: Money Diverted from Public Schools?
June 26, 2017
All the programs basically work this way: Individuals and businesses make cash or stock donations to scholarship granting organizations. The organizations award scholarships to qualifying families with K-12 students, primarily children in failing public schools or whose families’ income meets the state’s poverty threshold. Students can then attend a private or religious school of their […]
Investors and Corporations Would Profit from a Federal Private School Voucher Tax Credit
• By Carl Davis
A new report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) and AASA, the School Superintendents Association, details how tax subsidies that funnel money toward private schools are being used as profitable tax shelters by high-income taxpayers. By exploiting interactions between federal and state tax law, high-income taxpayers in nine states are currently able […]
Public Loss Private Gain: How School Voucher Tax Shelters Undermine Public Education
• By Carl Davis, Sasha Pudelski
One of the most important functions of government is to maintain a high-quality public education system. In many states, however, this objective is being undermined by tax policies that redirect public dollars for K-12 education toward private schools.
South Carolina’s Gas Tax Deal: Could Have Been Worse, Could Have Been Better
• By Dylan Grundman O'Neill
South Carolina lawmakers this week raised the state’s gas tax for the first time in 28 years, a time period that tied for the third-longest in the nation. While the increase was meaningful and hard-fought, the final result remains flawed in ways that could have been easily remedied or avoided. The biggest positive of the […]
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