Virginia

State governments provide a wide array of tax breaks for their elderly residents. Almost every state that levies an income tax now allows some form of income tax exemption or credit for citizens over age 65 that is unavailable to non-elderly taxpayers. And most states provide special property tax breaks to the elderly. Unfortunately, too many of these breaks are poorly-targeted, unsustainable, and unfair. This policy brief surveys federal and state approaches to reducing taxes for older adults and suggests options for designing less costly and better targeted tax breaks for elderly taxpayers.

The federal government and many states are seeing shortfalls in their transportation budgets in part because the gasoline taxes they use to generate those funds are poorly designed. Thirty-one states and the federal government levy "fixed-rate" gas taxes where the tax rate does not change even as the cost of infrastructure materials inevitably increases over time. The federal government's 18.4 cent gas tax, for example, has not increased in over 22 years. And twenty states have gone a decade or more without a gas tax increase.

A new study released today by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) and the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy finds that the low- and middle-income West Virginians pay more in state and local taxes as a percent of their income compared to the state’s wealthiest residents. Read the full report

The lowest income Virginians pay 74 percent more in taxes as a percent of their income compared to the state’s wealthiest residents, according to a new study released today by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). The study, Who Pays?, analyzes tax systems in all 50 states and factors in all major state […]

Read the Report in PDF Form The Census Bureau released data in September showing that the share of Americans living in poverty remains high. In 2013, the national poverty rate was 14.5 percent, a slight drop from last years’ rate of 15 percent and the first decline since 2006.1 However, the poverty rate remains 2.0 […]

Sales taxes are an important revenue source, comprising close to half of all state revenues in 2013. But sales taxes are also inherently regressive because the lower a family's income, the more of its income the family must spend on things subject to the tax.

The gasoline tax is the single largest source of funding for transportation infrastructure in the United States, but the tax is on an unsustainable course. Sluggish gas tax revenue growth has put strain on transportation budgets at the federal and state levels, and has led to countless debates around the country about how best to pay for America's infrastructure.

An updated version of this brief was published on February 9, 2017.   Read this report in pdf. Every state levies taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel, usually just called “gas taxes.” These taxes are an important source of state revenue—particularly for transportation—but their poor design has resulted in sluggish revenue growth that fails to […]

In most states, the gasoline tax is set at a fixed number of cents per gallon of gas. South Carolina drivers, for example, have been paying 16 cents per gallon in state tax for more than a quarter century.1 But while this type of fixed-rate gas tax may appear to be flat over time, its lack of change in the face of inflation means that its "real" value, or purchasing power, is steadily declining. In ten states, this decline has brought the state's inflation-adjusted gas tax rate to its lowest level in the state's history.

The federal government and many states are seeing shortfalls in their transportation budgets in part because the gasoline taxes they use to generate those funds are poorly designed. Thirty-two states and the federal government levy "fixed-rate" gas taxes where the tax rate does not change even as the cost of infrastructure materials inevitably increases over time. The federal government's 18.4 cent gas tax, for example, has not increased in over twenty years. And almost half the states (24) have gone a decade or more without a gas tax increase.