Tennessee
Nooga.com: Study Says Tennessee Poor Hit Harder with Taxes than the Rich
February 2, 2015
The report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy—a nonpartisan research group with ties to the liberal-leaning Citizens for Tax Justice—ranks Tennessee’s tax system as the seventh most unfair in the U.S. Under a regressive tax structure, family incomes are less equal after state and local taxes are paid than before. Read more
Major tax overhauls are on the agenda in a record number of states, and “Who Pays?” documents in state-by-state detail the precise distribution of state income taxes, sales and excise taxes and property taxes paid by each income group as of January 2013. It is a critical baseline against which future proposals can be measured. […]
Slate: Republicans Are Finally Talking About Income Inequality
January 24, 2015
The problem is that this shifts the tax burden from the top to the bottom. In other words, it’s upward redistribution of wealth that harms the least well-off. And while the vast majority of states have tax systems that hit low-income Americans the hardest, these effects are worst in conservative states, where the highest tax […]
Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury: Tennessee Transportation Funding
January 20, 2015
This report is in response to a 2014 request from the Fiscal Review Committee of the Tennessee General Assembly. The purpose of this study is to provide an overview of Tennessee’s current financing system for highways and bridges, outline challenges to the existing system, and review alternative funding methods. The report is intended to provide […]
Chattanooga Times Free Press: She Still Struggles But Now She Has Hope
January 20, 2015
Georgia and Tennessee are not among the 29 states to pass legislation boosting the minimum wage above the federal rate of $7.25 per hour. A report released last week by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that Tennessee’s tax rates are among the top 10 most regressive in the nation, meaning the poor […]
Salon: Defiant Sam Brownback vows to move toward zero income tax — and make Kansas even more unequal
January 16, 2015
“A study released this week underscores one of the most pernicious effects of such a tax regime: It exacerbates inequality. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that “[v]irtually every state’s tax system is fundamentally unfair,” with state and local taxes eating disproportionately into lower-income workers’ wages. But the effect was far worse in […]
Nashville Scene:The State GOP Takes Aim at the Hall Tax
December 12, 2014
According to a study by the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, nearly two-thirds of this tax cut would flow to the wealthiest 5 percent of the state’s taxpayers. Taxpayers over age 65 who earn less than $59,000 a year in total income already are exempt from the tax. The vast majority of Tennesseans […]
The Times Free Press: A Taxing Question
November 17, 2014
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a liberal-leaning think tank, last spring estimated that if the Hall tax were eliminated, Tennessee’s wealthiest residents with annual incomes of $970,000 would receive “a whopping 63 percent of the benefits of the tax cut.” Another 23 percent would end up in federal coffers because those who paid […]
Memphis Daily News: Why Are Tennesseans so Afraid of an Income Tax?
November 3, 2014
Six of the nine state states without a state income tax – Tennessee, Texas, Florida, Washington, Alaska and Nevada – have had higher than average annual unemployment rates over the last decade, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Five of the nine – Tennessee, Florida, New Hampshire, Alaska and Nevada – are […]
Knoxville News Sentinel: Moves to Repeal Hall Income Tax Begin
September 22, 2014
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy did an analysis earlier this year that found wealthy residents — income averaging $970,000 per year — would receive “a whopping 63 percent of the benefits” from repeal of the Hall while another 23 percent “would go to the federal government because residents who pay the tax would […]
The Motley Fool: The 5 States with the Highest Sales Tax
August 20, 2014
By Jeremy Bowman: Nearly every state in the union charges a sales tax, and the tax levied on goods and services sold at the retail level is just one of many tools states use to collect revenue, along with licensing and taxes on income, corporations, and property. Sales taxes tend to attract less attention than […]
For much of the last century, estate and inheritance taxes have played an important role in helping states to adequately fund public services in a way that improves the progressivity of state tax systems. While many of the taxes levied by state and local governments fall most heavily on low-income families, only the very wealthy pay estate and inheritance taxes. Recent changes in the federal estate tax, however, culminating in the "fiscal cliff " deal of early 2013, have forced states to reevaluate the structure of their estate and inheritance taxes. Unfortunately, the trend of late has tended toward weakening…
WZTV: Facebook Gets Refund Without Paying Taxes
July 9, 2014
“The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy reports these large companies like Facebook pay their executives in stock options instead of cash which doesn’t cost the company a dime yet they can write it off as an expense. So Facebook profited more than a billion dollars in 2012 and since they’re not paying, it could […]
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 […]
The Tennessean: Hall tax cut gets new push
April 8, 2014
(Original Post) 5:07 p.m. CDT April 7, 2014 Tennessee lawmakers are seriously considering a new proposal to roll back the state’s tax on investments, even as they wrestle with a growing hole in the state budget. More than 90 legislators have signed onto a pledge from a prominent anti-tax organization to support a measure that […]
Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier: Gas tax
April 2, 2014
(Original Post) A new fact sheet from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy indicates Iowa is one of seven states where the gas tax rates are “stuck in neutral.” According to the institute’s analysis, 21 states have gone a decade or more without increasing their gas tax rates and 16 states have gone two […]
Globe Gazette: Iowa’s Among Gas Tax Rates Stuck in Neutral
April 2, 2014
(Original Post) A new fact sheet from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy indicates Iowa is one of seven states where the gas tax rates are “stuck in neutral.” According to the institute’s analysis, 21 states have gone a decade or more without increasing their gas tax rates and 16 states have gone two […]
Tennessee Hall Tax Repeal Would Overwhelmingly Benefit the Wealthy, Raise Tennesseans’ Federal Tax Bills by $60 Million
March 24, 2014 • By Carl Davis
A new analysis performed using the ITEP Microsimulation Tax Model shows that the vast majority of Tennesseans would see very little benefit from Hall Tax repeal. Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of the tax cuts would flow to the wealthiest 5 percent of Tennessee taxpayers, while another quarter (23 percent) would actually end up in the federal government's coffers. Moreover, if localities respond to Hall Tax repeal by raising property taxes, some Tennesseans could actually face higher tax bills under this proposal.
Mint Press News: Expiring Tax Deductions Prompt Talk Of Reform For State, Federal Tax System
December 30, 2013
(Original Post) Without congressional action to extend state and federal tax deductions, 11 million taxpayers will lose $17 billion. By Jo Erickson | December 26, 2013 As the year ends nine federal tax provisions will expire, causing some to pay more in state and local sales taxes. Most critics agree that state and federal taxes […]
The Cap Times: What do states with no income tax do for revenue?
December 30, 2013
(Original Post) December 27, 2013 10:25 am • STEVEN ELBOW | The Capital Times | [email protected] Gov. Scott Walker raised a lot of eyebrows earlier this month when he broached the idea of scrapping the state income tax, joining seven other states. So what do Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming do […]
Politico: Arthur Laffer is back as GOP tax man
October 15, 2013
By RACHAEL BADE | 10/14/13 11:03 PM EDT Four decades ago at the Washington Hotel, a quirky economist made a pitch on the back of a napkin to Ford administration officials Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld: Cutting taxes would create an economic boom. Back then, many Republicans opposed tax cuts, but that famous “Laffer […]
Annual state and local finance data from the Census Bureau are often used to rank states as "low" or "high" tax states based on taxes collected as a share of state personal income. But focusing on a state's overall tax revenues overlooks the fact that taxpayers experience tax systems very differently. In particular, the poorest 20 percent of taxpayers pay a greater share of their income in state and local taxes than any other income group in all but 10 states (including DC). And, in every state, low- income taxpayers pay more as a share of income than the wealthiest…
Tennessee is a “Low Tax State” Overall, But Not for Families Living in Poverty
September 19, 2013 • By Meg Wiehe
Read the Report in PDF Form See all “Low Tax for Who?” states New data from the Census Bureau appear to lend support to Tennessee’s reputation as a “low tax state,” ranking it 49th nationally in taxes collected as a share of personal income.1 But focusing on the state’s overall tax revenues has led many […]
PBS: State Tax Cuts: Is Arthur Laffer All Wet?
August 2, 2013
The correlation between states having no income tax and their economic growth is not as direct as Reagan White House economic adviser Arthur Laffer says it is, argues tax economist Joel Slemrod.
PBS: How Low Can They Go? Arthur Laffer Defends Slashing State Income Taxes
August 1, 2013
In this 2012 Making Sen$e report, former Reagan White House economic adviser Arthur Laffer drew his famous curve on a napkin -- just the way he did for the Ford administration -- and explained how it works.
