ITEP State Rundown

This week we have news of a destructive tax cut plan finally approved in Iowa just as one was narrowly avoided in Kansas. Tax debates in Minnesota and Missouri will go down to the wire. And residents of Arizona and Colorado are considering progressive revenue solutions to their states' education funding crises.

This week, Arizona teachers continued to strike over pay issues and advocates unveiled a progressive revenue solution they hope to put before voters, while a progressive income tax also gained support as part of a resolution to Illinois's budget troubles. Iowa and Missouri legislators continued to try to push through unsustainable tax cuts before their sessions end. And Minnesota and South Carolina focused on responding to the federal tax-cut bill.

This Arbor Day week, the seeds of discontent with underfunded school systems and underpaid teachers continued to spread, with walkouts occurring in both Arizona and Colorado. And recognizing the need to see the forest as well as the trees, the Arizona teachers have presented revenue solutions to get to the true root of the problem. In the plains states, tax cut proposals continue to pop up like weeds in Kansas and threaten to spread to Iowa and Missouri, where lawmakers are running out of time but are still hoping their efforts to pass destructive tax cuts will bear fruit.

This week the IRS website asked some would-be tax filers to return after December 31, 9999. State legislators don't have quite that much time, but are struggling to wrap up their tax debates on schedule as well. Iowa legislators, for example, are ironically still debating tax cuts despite having run out of money to cover their daily expenses for the year. Nebraska's session wrapped up, but its tax debate continues in the form of a call for a special session and the threat of an unfunded tax cut going before voters in November. Mississippi's tax debate has been revived by…

This Friday the 13th is a spooky one for many state lawmakers, as past bad fiscal decisions have been coming back to haunt them in the form of teacher strikes and walk-outs in Arizona, Kentucky, and Oklahoma. Meanwhile, policymakers in Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oregon, and Utah all attempted to exorcise negative consequences of the federal tax-cut bill from their tax codes. And our What We're Reading section includes yet another stake to the heart of the millionaire tax-flight myth and other good reads.

This week, Kentucky legislators passed a bill shifting taxes onto low- and middle-income families, Oklahoma legislators reached a deal on education funding, and their counterparts in Kansas proffered multiple proposals for their education funding needs. Meanwhile, tax debates are coming down to the wire in Iowa, Missouri, and Nebraska, and responses to the federal tax-cut bill were settled on in Maryland, New York, and Wisconsin.

This week, after the recent teacher strike in West Virginia, teacher pay crises brought on by years of irresponsible tax cuts also made headlines in Arizona and Oklahoma. Maine and New York lawmakers continue to hash out how they will respond to the federal tax bill. And their counterparts in Missouri and Nebraska attempt to push forward their tax cutting agendas.

The onset of spring this week proved to be fertile ground for state fiscal policy debates. A teacher strike came to an end in West Virginia as another seems ready to begin in Oklahoma. Budgets were finalized in Florida, West Virginia, and Wyoming, are set to awaken from hibernation in Missouri and Virginia, and are being hotly debated in several other states. Meanwhile Idaho, Iowa, Maryland, and Minnesota continued to grapple with implications of the federal tax-cut bill.  And our What We're Reading section includes coverage of how states are attempting to further public priorities by taxing carbon, online gambling,…

With many state legislative sessions about halfway through, the ripple effects of the federal tax-cut bill took a back seat this week as states focused their energies on their own tax and budget issues. Major proposals were released in Nebraska and New Jersey, one advanced in Missouri, and debates wrapped up in Florida, Utah, and Washington. Oklahoma and Vermont are considering ways to improve education funding, while California, New York, and Vermont look to require more of their most fortunate residents. And check in on "what we're reading" for resources on the online sales tax debate, the role of property…

This week was very active for state tax debates. Georgia, Idaho, and Oregon passed bills reacting to the federal tax cut, as Maryland and other states made headway on their own responses. Florida lawmakers sent a harmful "supermajority" constitutional amendment to voters. New Jersey now has two progressive revenue raising proposals on the table (and a need for both). Louisiana ended one special session with talks of yet another. And online sales taxes continued to make news nationally and in Kansas, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania.

February may be the shortest month but it has been a long one for state lawmakers. This week saw Arizona, Idaho, Oregon, and Utah seemingly approaching final decisions on how to respond to the federal tax-cut bill, while a bill that appeared cleared for take-off in Georgia hit some unexpected turbulence. Other states are still studying what the federal bill means for them, and many more continue to debate tax and budget proposals independently of the federal changes. And be sure to check our "What We're Reading" section for news on corporate tax credits from multiple states.

This week, major tax packages relating to the federal tax-cut bill made news in Georgia, Iowa, and Louisiana, as Minnesota and Oregon lawmakers also continue to work out how their states will be affected. New Mexico's legislative session has finished without significant tax changes, while Idaho and Illinois's sessions are beginning to heat up, and Vermont's school funding system is under the microscope.

This Valentine's week finds California, Georgia, Missouri, New York, Oregon, and other states flirting with the idea of coupling to various components of the federal tax-cut bill. Meanwhile, lawmakers seeking revenue solutions to budget shortfalls in Alaska, Oklahoma, and Wyoming saw their advances spurned, and anti-tax advocates in many states have been getting mixed responses to their tax-cut proposals. And be sure to check out our "what we're reading" section to see how states are getting no love in recent federal budget developments.

Several states this week are looking at ways to revamp their tax codes in response to the federal tax cut bill, with Georgia, Idaho, Maryland, Nebraska, and Vermont all actively considering proposals. Meanwhile, Connecticut, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania are working on resolving their budget shortfalls. And transportation funding is getting needed attention in Mississippi, Utah, and Wisconsin.

This week was promising for advocates of Earned Income Tax Credits (EITCs) and other tax breaks for workers and their families, which are making headway in Alabama, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Utah, and Wisconsin. The week also saw the unveiling of a tax cut plan in Missouri, a budget-balancing tax increase package in Oklahoma, the end of an unproductive film tax credit in West Virginia, and a very busy week for tax policy in Utah.

State legislative sessions are in full swing this week as states grapple with revenue shortfalls and the ramifications of the federal tax cut bill. Lawmakers in Alaska and Louisiana, for example, are debating how to handle their revenue shortfalls, and a tax cut proposal in Idaho has been received tepidly. And be sure to peruse our "What We're Reading" section for helpful perspectives on how states are affected by the federal tax cut bill.

The big news this week in state tax law is that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take on the issue of online sales, nexus, and sales tax collection. States have increasingly lost out on sales tax revenues as more transactions have shifted online from brick-and-mortar stores and the laws determining who is required to collect and remit sales taxes haven't kept up. This is potentially good news for states—25 of which National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO) reports started the new year with budgetary deficits. In other news, grappling with the local impact of federal tax reform…

As states continue to sift through wreckage of the federal tax cut bill to try to determine how they will be affected, two things should be clear to everyone: the richest people in every state just got a massive federal tax cut, and federal funding for shared priorities like education and health care is certain to continue to decline. State leaders who care about those priorities should consider asking those wealthy beneficiaries of the federal cuts to pay more to the state in order to minimize the damage of the looming federal funding cuts, but so far policymakers in Idaho,…

This week marks the beginning of what is bound to be a wild year for state tax and budget debates. Essentially every state is already working to sort through the complicated ramifications of the federal tax cuts passed in December, including Kansas, Michigan, Montana, and New Jersey highlighted below. These and other states will have important decisions to make about how to incorporate, reject, or mitigate various aspects of the new federal law, and will need considerable resolve to improve state tax policy to be more fair and more adequate – even as federal taxes become less so.

These have been dark days for those who care about tax justice and public investments, but with the Winter Solstice this week and many states diving into their legislative sessions in January, longer days (and long work days) are soon to come! Governors and legislators are already proposing or hinting at their 2018 tax and budget plans in Alaska, California, Iowa, Maryland, and Washington. And transportation investments are getting strong support in Missouri, Oregon, and Virginia.

Supermajority requirements for tax increases are proving a major obstacle to responsible budgeting in Oklahoma, while ballot initiatives are being filed to alter or abolish Oregon‘s similar requirement, but a similar requirement is slowly advancing toward the ballot in Florida nonetheless. Displeasure with agricultural property taxes are spawning both a ballot initiative drive and a […]

Though most eyes were on Congress rather than states this week, several states have been taking stock of their fiscal situations. Wyoming lawmakers considered ways to resolve budget shortfalls, Kansas and New Mexico legislators got some minor good news about their states' revenues, their counterparts in Minnesota and Vermont grappled with less encouraging revenue news, and those in West Virginia were just happy to hear their revenues had at least met expectations for once.

The State Rundown is back from Thanksgiving break with a heaping helping of leftover state tax news, but beware, some of it may be rotten.

Internet sales tax fairness efforts gained momentum this week as most states joined together to encourage the US Supreme Court to allow them to collect taxes on online sales. Meanwhile, Montana lawmakers will enter special session next week to plug their revenue shortfall, Mississippi's (self-inflicted) revenue crunch is reaching unprecedented severity, and misguided corporate tax subsidies got mainstream attention from HBO's John Oliver and Rolling Stone.

This week a "historic" but highly problematic budget agreement was finally reached in Connecticut, Michigan lawmakers banned localities from taxing any food or beverages, and Nebraska and North Dakota both got unpleasant news about future revenues. Also see our "what we're reading" section for news on 11 states that have run up long-term fiscal deficits since 2002 and the impacts of flooding on local tax bases.