South Dakota

The anti-tax playbook has been on full display in recent weeks as state policymakers run their offenses against public services and shared priorities. As the playbook dictates, if you have a little breathing room in your budget, propose cuts to the one major tax (personal income tax) that tends to ask more of those who […]

The 2025 legislative season will be here before we know it, and state lawmakers have begun unveiling their priorities and proposals. Unfortunately, despite stagnating revenue growth, many lawmakers continue to push for deep, regressive tax cuts - often before the full impact of previous tax cuts is felt.

Tax policy results are mixed across the country as many voters weigh in on state and local ballot measures. For example, Washington state voted to maintain its new progressive tax on capital gains; Georgia voters capped growth in property tax assessments; Illinois voters approved a call for a millionaires’ tax; North Dakota voters rejected property […]

As we approach November’s election, voters in several states will be weighing in on tax policy changes. The outcomes will impact the equity of state and local tax systems and the adequacy of the revenue those systems are able to raise to fund public services.

The TCJA Permanency Act would make permanent the provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 that are set to expire at the end of 2025. The legislation would disproportionately benefit the richest Americans. Below are graphics for each state that show the effects of making TCJA permanent across income groups. See ITEP’s […]

The IRS has opened its free tax filing service called Direct File to every state for the 2025 tax filing season. Direct File was made possible by President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which provided new resources for the IRS to improve customer service and ensure taxpayers claim the benefits and deductions for which they are […]

Undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022. Providing access to work authorization for undocumented immigrants would increase their tax contributions both because their wages would rise and because their rates of tax compliance would increase.

Undocumented immigrants who work and pay taxes but don't have a valid Social Security number for either themselves or their children are excluded from federal EITC and CTC benefits. Fortunately, several states have stepped in to ensure undocumented immigrants are not left behind by the gaps in the federal EITC and CTC. State lawmakers should continue to ensure that immigrants who are otherwise eligible for these tax credits receive them.

While there is plenty of room to expand Direct File at the federal level, states can take matters into their own hands and bring this benefit to their residents by opting into the program.

There are a variety of factors that affect teacher pay. But one often overlooked factor is progressive tax policies that allow states to raise and provide the funding educators and their students deserve.

State and local tax codes can do a lot to reduce inequality. But they add to the nation’s growing income inequality problem when they capture a greater share of income from low- or moderate-income taxpayers. These regressive tax codes also result in higher tax rates on communities of color, further worsening racial income and wealth divides.

While madness is typically reserved for basketball in March, several high-profile, regressive tax cuts are making their way through state legislatures this week...

While funding cuts to the IRS may have been necessary as a political matter to avoid harmful agency shutdowns, they are severely misguided as a policy matter. By all serious accounts, cuts to IRS funding increase the deficit due to uncollected taxes – mostly from big businesses and the very wealthy.

Many state legislative sessions are in the final stretch...

Anti-tax interests finally found the end of the tax cutting appetite in a few states this week...

State legislative sessions are in full swing with New Jersey and Oklahoma both particularly active this week...

Updated July 15, 2024 In 2024, state lawmakers have a choice: advance tax policy that improves equity and helps communities thrive, or push tax policies that disproportionately benefit the wealthy, drain funding for critical public services, and make it harder for low-income and working families to get ahead. Despite worsening state fiscal conditions, we expect […]

The findings of Who Pays? go a long way toward explaining why so many states are failing to raise the amount of revenue needed to provide full and robust support for our public schools.

Tax policy themes have begun to crop up in states as governors give their yearly addresses and legislators lay out their plans for the 2024 legislative season...

The vast majority of state and local tax systems are upside-down, with the wealthy paying a far lesser share of their income in taxes than low- and middle-income families. Yet a few states have made strides to buck that trend and have tax codes that are somewhat progressive and therefore do not worsen inequality.

The vast majority of state and local tax systems are upside-down, with the wealthy paying a far lesser share of their income in taxes than low- and middle-income families. That’s according to the latest edition of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy’s Who Pays?, the only distributional analysis of tax systems in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

South Dakota Download PDF All figures and charts show 2024 tax law in South Dakota, presented at 2023 income levels. Senior taxpayers are excluded for reasons detailed in the methodology. Our analysis includes nearly all (99.6 percent) state and local tax revenue collected in South Dakota. State and local tax shares of family income Top […]

States differ dramatically in how much they allow families to make choices about whether and when to have children and how much support they provide when families do. But there is a clear pattern: the states that compel childbirth spend less to help children once they are born.

Summer is here and many states nearing the end of their legislative sessions. Temperatures are rising in more ways than one in some state legislatures while others seem to be cooling off.

As we approach the midpoint of 2023, it’s a good time to look back at the progress states have made in the name of tax fairness and equity...