Utah
Most States Have Raised Gas Taxes in Recent Years
• By Carl Davis
Ohio now enjoys the distinction of being the 30th state to raise or reform its gas tax this decade, and the third state to do so this year, under a bill signed into law by Gov. Mike DeWine. While state tax policy can be a contentious topic, there has been a remarkable level of agreement on the gasoline tax. Increasingly, state lawmakers are deciding that outdated gas taxes need to be raised and reformed to…
Most Americans Live in States with Variable-Rate Gas Taxes
• By Carl Davis
The flawed design of federal and state gasoline taxes has made it exceedingly difficult to raise adequate funds to maintain the nation’s transportation infrastructure. Twenty-eight states and the federal government levy fixed-rate gas taxes where the tax rate does not change even when the cost of infrastructure materials rises or when drivers purchase more fuel-efficient vehicles and pay less in gas tax. The federal government’s 18.4-cent gas tax, for example, has not increased in over…
State Rundown 6/19: Juneteenth Highlights Role of State Policy in Racial Equity Fight
• By ITEP Staff
As Americans observe Juneteenth today–the day two years after the Emancipation Proclamation on which news of the end of the Civil War and slavery reached some of the last slaves in Texas—most people’s attention should be on celebrating victories, remembering losses, gathering strength to continue the fight for racial justice, and the accompanying Congressional reparations hearings. In comparison, state tax debates over matters such as reluctance to invest in infrastructure in Michigan and Missouri, approval of income tax cuts in Wisconsin, and a budget standoff in New Jersey may seem…
State Rundown 6/12: Progress in Taxing the Rich, Expanding EITCs, and Taming Tax Subsidies
• By ITEP Staff
This week saw lawmakers in Ohio propose significant harmful tax cuts, leaders in California and Oregon work toward strengthening the state Earned Income Tax Credits (EITCs), and governors in Missouri and Kansas declare a truce to end the practice of bribing businesses in the Kansas City area with tax cuts to move from one side of the state line to the other. Meanwhile, Massachusetts leaders are discussing ways of raising taxes on their richest households,…
These States Abandoned Old Gas Tax Structures in Favor of More Sustainable Variable-Rate Gas Taxes
• By ITEP Staff
Because of these reforms, more than 193 million people (or 59 percent of the U.S. population) now live in places where the state gas tax rate automatically varies over time.
State Rundown 5/16: Tensions Remain High Over Budgets and School Finances in Several States
• By ITEP Staff
Tax and budget negotiations remain at standstills in Louisiana and Minnesota, as school funding debates and teacher protests again captured headlines in several states. Oregon lawmakers, for example, finally passed a mixed-bag tax package that won’t improve tax equity but will raise much-needed revenue for education. Meanwhile their counterparts in Nebraska continue to debate highly […]
State Rundown 5/1: Teacher Uprisings Continue on May Day
• By ITEP Staff
Teachers in North Carolina and South Carolina are walking out and rallying this week for increased education funding, teacher and staff pay, and other improvements to benefit students—if you’re unsure why be sure to check out research on the teacher shortage and pay gap under “What We’re Reading” below. Meanwhile, budget debates have recently wrapped up in Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Washington. And major tax debates are kicking into high gear in both…
The Case for Extending State-Level Child Tax Credits to Those Left Out: A 50-State Analysis
• By Aidan Davis, Meg Wiehe
As of 2017, 11.5 million children in the United States were living in poverty. A national, fully-refundable Child Tax Credit (CTC) would effectively address persistently high child poverty rates at the national and state levels. The federal CTC in its current form falls short of achieving this goal due to its earnings requirement and lack of full refundability. Fortunately, states have options to make state-level improvements in the absence of federal policy change. A state-level…
Salt Lake Tribune: It’s Tax Day. If you’ve procrastinated, there are some things you should know
April 15, 2019
A recent report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy says low- and middle-income Utahns pay an overall effective tax rate that is higher than the rate paid by upper-income residents for state and local taxes. For example, the top 1 percent of Utah income earners pay 6.7 percent of their income to state […]
State Rundown 3/14: Tax Fairness Proposed in Illinois
• By ITEP Staff
More than three billion dollars could be raised under a major progressive tax plan proposed by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker this week, the point being to simultaneously improve the state’s upside-down tax code and address its notorious budget gap issues. One state, Utah, may already be looking at a special session to revisit the sales tax reform debate that ended this week without resolution, in contrast to Alabama and Arkansas, where leaders finally resolved years-long…
State Rundown 3/6: March Tax Debates Contain Sanity Amid Usual Madness
• By ITEP Staff
State policymakers around the nation this week served up a handful of harmful and upside-down tax proposals, but these were refreshingly outnumbered by sound tax and budget policy proposals in several other states. NEW JERSEY Gov. Phil Murphy made tax fairness an explicit priority in his budget address, the NEW MEXICO House passed progressive reforms to improve the state’s schools and tax code, states such as VERMONT are looking to raise funds from legalized cannabis…
Fairness Matters: A Chart Book on Who Pays State and Local Taxes
• By ITEP Staff
There is significant room for improvement in state and local tax codes. State tax codes are filled with top-heavy exemptions and deductions and often fail to tax higher incomes at higher rates. States and localities have come to rely too heavily on regressive sales taxes that fail to reflect the modern economy. And overall tax collections are often inadequate in the short-run and unsustainable in the long-run. These types of shortcomings provide compelling reason to…
State Rundown 2/27: Temperatures and Tax Fights Continue to Polarize
• By ITEP Staff
As another polar vortex heads for large swaths of the country, state tax debates this week were highly polarized in another way. Lawmakers and advocates in MICHIGAN, OHIO, OREGON, UTAH, and elsewhere fought to enact or improve state Earned Income Tax Credits to give a boost to low- and middle-income working families. But the opposite extreme was heavily represented as well, as others pushed for regressive tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations, including in…
Trends We’re Watching in 2019: Attempting to Double Down on Failed Trickle-Down Regressive Tax Cuts
• By Lisa Christensen Gee
It’s always troubling for those concerned with adequate and fair public finance systems when states prioritize tax cuts at the cost of divesting in important public priorities and exacerbating underlying tax inequalities. But it’s even more nerve-racking when it happens on the eve of what many consider to be an inevitable economic downturn.
Trends We’re Watching in 2019: Addressing Lingering Federal Conformity Questions and Opportunities
• By Dylan Grundman O'Neill
In our last update on state responses to the federal tax cut (Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, or TCJA), we noted that several states were waiting until 2019 to make their final decisions, giving them additional time to (hopefully) respond in ways that improve their fiscal situations and upside-down tax codes. The TCJA is affecting the 2018 federal taxes people are filing now, in some cases adding urgency and/or confusion to these debates.
Trends We’re Watching in 2019: The Use of Targeted Tax Breaks to Help Address Poverty and Inequality
• By Aidan Davis
Continuing to build upon the momentum of previous years, states are taking steps to create and improve targeted tax breaks meant to lift their most in-need state residents up and out of poverty. Most notably, a range of states are exploring ways to restore, enhance or create state Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC). EITCs are an effective tool to help struggling families with low wages make ends meet and provide necessities for their children. The…
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…
State Rundown 1/24: States Reflect on MLK’s Dream and Teacher Uprisings
• By ITEP Staff
This week, as Americans in every state celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day and reflected on his dream of peaceful protest and racial and economic justice, many eyes were on the teachers’ strike pressing for parts of this dream amid the “curvaceous slopes of California.” Governors and lawmakers in many states—including Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, South Carolina, and Wisconsin—discussed ways to raise pay for teachers and/or enhance education investments generally.
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,…
Voices for Utah Children: Response to Govenor’s Budget Recommendations FY2020
• By ITEP Staff
As a percent of income, 95% of Utah’s families pay more in sales and other local taxes than the top 5% of higher income families.
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…
FOX13 SLC: Middle Income Utahns Bear Brunt of State and Local Tax Burden
• By ITEP Staff
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy released a report showing how every state and the District of Columbia use tax policy in regressive and progressive ways. Their conclusion: all but five states and the District of Columbia have regressive systems, meaning they favor the wealthy over middle and/or low-income earners.
State Rundown 10/18: States Learn “Who Pays”!
• By ITEP Staff
Policymakers and residents in all 50 states and the District of Columbia got new ITEP data this week on how their tax structures and decisions affect their high-, middle-, and low-income residents. As our “Who Pays?” report outlines, most state and local tax codes exacerbate economic inequalities and all states have room to improve. The data can serve as an important informative backdrop to all state and local tax policy debates, such as whether to…
Utah: Who Pays? 6th Edition
• By ITEP Staff
UTAH Read as PDF UTAH 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 $22,900 $22,900 to $39,600 $39,600 to $63,900 $63,900 to $104,300 $104,300 to $202,400 $202,400 to $486,500 over $486,500 […]
