Texas
State Rundown 2/14: We ♥ Taxes!
• By ITEP Staff
Happy Valentine’s Day to all lovers of quality research, sound fiscal policy, and progressive tax reforms! This week, some leaders in ARKANSAS displayed their infatuation with the rich by advancing regressive tax cuts, but others in the state are trying to show some love to low- and middle-income families instead. WISCONSIN lawmakers are devoted to tax reductions for the middle class but have not yet decided how to express those feelings. NEBRASKA legislators are playing…
A Tale of Two States: How State Tax Systems Perpetuate Income Inequality
• By ITEP Staff
To explain how state tax systems make income inequality worse, we compared tax systems in New Jersey and Texas which, before taxes, have similar levels of income inequality. This comparison provides an example of how policymakers’ decisions affect the economic wellbeing of their constituents.
State Rundown 1/31: Governors and Teachers Dominate Headlines, Much More in Fine Print
• By ITEP Staff
Gubernatorial addresses and the prospect of teacher strikes continued to take center stage in state fiscal news this week, as governors of Connecticut, Maryland, and Utah gave speeches that all included significant tax proposals. Meanwhile, teachers walked out in Virginia, and many other states debated school funding increases to avoid similar results. State policymakers have many other debates on their hands as well, including what to do with online sales tax revenue, how to cut…
A Simple Fix for a $17 Billion Loophole: How States Can Reclaim Revenue Lost to Tax Havens
• By Richard Phillips
Enacting Worldwide Combined Reporting or Complete Reporting in all states, this report calculates, would increase state tax revenue by $17.04 billion dollars. Of that total, $2.85 billion would be raised through domestic Combined Reporting improvements, and $14.19 billion would be raised by addressing offshore tax dodging (see Table 1). Enacting Combined Reporting and including known tax havens would result in $7.75 billion in annual tax revenue, $4.9 billion from income booked offshore.
Who Pays and Why It Matters | MECEP Policy Insights Conference Keynote Address
• By Aidan Davis
States have broad discretion in how they secure the resources to fund education, health care, infrastructure, and other priorities important to communities and families. Aidan Davis with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy will offer a national perspective on state-level approaches to funding public investments and the implications of those approaches on tax fairness and revenue adequacy, and their economic outcomes. She’ll also provide insight on what’s in store for 2019 among the states.
State Rundown 1/10: States Should Resolve to Pursue Equitable Tax Options
• By ITEP Staff
This week we released a handy guide of policy options for Moving Toward More Equitable State Tax Systems, and are pleased to report that many state lawmakers are promoting policies that are in line with our recommendations. For example, Puerto Rico lawmakers recently enacted a targeted EITC-like credit for working families, and leaders in Virginia and elsewhere are working toward similar improvements. Arkansas residents also saw their tax code improve as laws reducing regressive consumption…
State Rundown 12/19: Time to Rest and Recharge for Big Year Ahead
• By ITEP Staff
With many people enjoying time off over the next couple weeks, and the longest nights of the year coming over the weekend, now is a good time to get plenty of rest and relaxation in advance of what is likely to be a very busy 2019 for state fiscal policy and other debates. Among those debates, Kentucky lawmakers will be returning to topics they could not resolve in a brief special session held this week,…
State Rundown 12/5: Familiar Questions Returning to Fore as 2019 Approaches
• By ITEP Staff
State lawmakers are preparing their agendas for 2019 and looking at all sorts of tax and budget policies in the process, raising many familiar questions. Oregon legislators, for example, will try to fill in the blanks in a proposal to boost investments in education that left out detail on how to fund them, while their counterparts in Texas face the inverse problem of a proposed property tax cut that fails to clarify how schools could…
Wyo File: Why Are We Footing the Bill for Billionaires?
November 16, 2018
he question, then, will be: Who pays? That question — “Who pays?” — is also at the center of a report released last month by the Washington, D.C.-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The report, Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States, looks at the different tax rates […]
State Rundown 11/16: Election Results Clarify Agendas as Real Work Begins
• By ITEP Staff
State policymakers, voters, and observers have been reflecting on this year’s campaigns and looking ahead to how the policy opportunities in their states have shifted as a result. For example, Arkansas’s governor sees a fresh chance to slash income taxes on the state’s wealthiest residents, while the governor-elect of Illinois will be doing just the opposite, launching into a promised effort to shore up the state’s budget by asking the wealthy to pay more. New…
Three Tax Takeaways on Amazon’s Expansion Announcement
• By Carl Davis
Today Amazon announced major expansions in New York and Virginia, where it intends to hire up to 50,000 full-time employees. The announcement marks the culmination of a highly publicized search that lasted more than a year and involved aggressive courting of the company by cities across the nation. The following are three tax-related observations on the announcement.
Washington Examiner: Think tank: Texas Isn’t a Low-tax State if You’re Poor
• By Carl Davis
Carl Davis for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy: [ M]any states traditionally considered to be “low-tax states” are actually high-tax for their poorest residents. The “low tax” label is typically assigned to states that either lack a personal income tax or that collect a comparatively low amount of tax revenue overall. But a focus on these measures can cause lawmakers to overlook the fact that state tax systems impact different taxpayers in very different ways, and…
CPPP: The Staggering Unfairness of Our State Tax System
• By ITEP Staff
Here’s one way to think about it: Families at the top of the income ladder receive 20 percent of all personal income in Texas, but pay only 8.5 percent of all state and local taxes. Families at the bottom of the scale receive only three percent of all income, but pay 5.7 percent of all taxes.
Politico Morning Tax: Desperately Seeking Clarity
• By ITEP Staff
MOST STATE TAX SYSTEMS REGRESSIVE: No state has more regressive taxes on its citizens than Washington, followed by Texas, Florida, South Dakota and Nevada, according to a distributional analysis of state tax systems that will be released today by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Most states take a larger share of income from low- and middle-income families than from wealthy families, it said. The 10 most regressive in the rankings tax their residents in the bottom…
Poorest 20 Percent Pays a 50 Percent Higher Effective State and Local Tax Rate than the Top 1 Percent
• By ITEP Staff
A comprehensive 50-state study released today by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) finds that most state and local tax systems tax low- and middle-income households at significantly higher rates than wealthy taxpayers, with the lowest-income households paying an average of 50 percent more of their income in taxes than the very rich.
New Report Finds that Upside-down State and Local Tax Systems Persist, Contributing to Inequality in Most States
• By Aidan Davis
State and local tax systems in 45 states worsen income inequality by making incomes more unequal after taxes. The worst among these are identified in ITEP’s Terrible 10. Washington, Texas, Florida, South Dakota, Nevada, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Oklahoma, and Wyoming hold the dubious honor of having the most regressive state and local tax systems in the nation. These states ask far more of their lower- and middle-income residents than of their wealthiest taxpayers.
Low Tax for Whom? Texas is a “Low Tax State” Overall, But Not for Families Living in Poverty
• By ITEP Staff
Texas’s tax system has vastly different impacts on taxpayers at different income levels. For instance, the lowest-income 20 percent of Texans contribute 13 percent of their income in state and local taxes — considerably more than any other income group in the state. For low-income families, Texas is far from being a low tax state; in fact, it is tied with Arizona as the sixth highest-tax state in the country for low-income families.
Low Tax for Whom? Arizona is a “Low Tax State” Overall, But Not for Families Living in Poverty
• By ITEP Staff
Arizona’s tax system has vastly different impacts on taxpayers at different income levels. For instance, the lowest-income 20 percent of Arizonans contribute 13 percent of their income in state and local taxes — considerably more than any other income group in the state. For low-income families, Arizona is far from being a low tax state; in fact, it is tied with Texas as the sixth highest-tax state in the country for low-income families.
Low-Tax States Are Often High-Tax for the Poor
• By Carl Davis
ITEP analysis reveals that many states traditionally considered to be “low-tax states” are actually high-tax for their poorest residents. The “low tax” label is typically assigned to states that either lack a personal income tax or that collect a comparatively low amount of tax revenue overall. But a focus on these measures can cause lawmakers to overlook the fact that state tax systems impact different taxpayers in very different ways, and that low-income taxpayers often…
Texas: Who Pays? 6th Edition
• By ITEP Staff
TEXAS Read as PDF TEXAS STATE AND LOCAL TAXES Taxes as Share of Family Income Top 20% Income Group Lowest 20% Second 20% Middle 20% Fourth 20% Next 15% Next 4% Top 1% Income Range Less than $20,900 $20,900 to $35,800 $35,800 to $56,000 $56,000 to $98,200 $98,200 to $216,000 $216,000 to $617,900 over $617,900 […]
State Rundown 10/4: Ballot/Election Season in Full Swing
• By ITEP Staff
South Carolina lawmakers have finally passed a federal conformity bill in response to last year’s federal tax-cut legislation. Voters in many states are hearing a lot about tax-related questions they’ll see on the ballot in November, particularly residents of Florida, Montana, and Oregon, where corporate donors and other anti-tax interests are spending major sums to alter policy in their states. And states continue to work on ensuring they can collect online sales taxes and, in…
Tax Cuts 2.0 – Texas
• By ITEP Staff
The $2 trillion 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) includes several provisions set to expire at the end of 2025. Now, GOP leaders have introduced a bill informally called “Tax Cuts 2.0” or “Tax Reform 2.0,” which would make the temporary provisions permanent. And they falsely claim that making these provisions permanent will benefit […]
State Rundown 9/26: States Cleaning Up from Florence, Gearing Up for November
• By ITEP Staff
Affordable housing efforts made news in Minnesota and Virginia this week, as tax breaks for homeowners and other victims of Hurricane Florence were made available in multiple states. Meanwhile, New Jersey is still looking into legalizing and taxing cannabis, and Wyoming continues to consider a corporate income tax. And gubernatorial candidates and ballot initiative efforts will give voters in many states much to consider in the November elections.
State Rundown 9/19: Don’t Call it a Comeback
• By ITEP Staff
The Rundown is back after a few-week hiatus, with lots of state fiscal news and quality research to share! Maine lawmakers found agreement on a response to the federal tax-cut bill, states continue to sort out how they’ll collect online sales taxes in the wake of the Wayfair decision, and policymakers in several states have been working on summer tax studies and other preparations for 2019 legislative sessions. Meanwhile, work on ballot measures and candidate tax plans to go before…
State Tax Codes as Poverty Fighting Tools: 2018 Update on Four Key Policies in All 50 States
• By Aidan Davis, Misha Hill
This report presents a comprehensive overview of anti-poverty tax policies, surveys tax policy decisions made in the states in 2018, and offers recommendations that every state should consider to help families rise out of poverty. States can jumpstart their anti-poverty efforts by enacting one or more of four proven and effective tax strategies to reduce the share of taxes paid by low- and moderate-income families: state Earned Income Tax Credits, property tax circuit breakers, targeted…
Institute on Taxation
and Economic Policy
ITEP is a non-profit, non-partisan tax policy organization. We conduct rigorous analyses of tax and economic proposals and provide data-driven recommendations to shape equitable and sustainable tax systems.
Subscribe to ITEP Emails
Tax research and policy news in your inbox.
Promote Fair Tax Policy
Your gift to ITEP promotes tax justice. With your help, we do research that supports taxing millionaires and billionaires, taxing big corporations and raising revenue for the things our people, our communities and our planet need.
Together, we can create a country with more economic justice, more racial justice, more climate justice… and more tax justice.