We retired Tax Justice Blog in April 2017. For new content on issues related to tax justice, go to www.justtaxesblog.org
As the back- to-school sales tax holidays season winds down, this Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) op-ed is a reminder that consumers and citizens “should not accept tax-free weekends as a replacement for the types of real reforms that clean out unnecessary breaks at the top and solve the problems that will still be there, long after this year’s sales tax holidays have passed.”
Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe has a message for Republican lawmakers bent on eliminating the state’s personal income tax: “If you’re going to eliminate the income tax, you better figure out where you’re going to get a couple billion just to stay where we are.” The Arkansas Republican Party platform includes replacing the state’s personal income tax with what they call a “more equitable method of taxation.” In Beebe’s words, “I don’t think there is more equitable… the income tax was designed to be more equitable than a flat, for example, sales tax.”
Now that Governor Jack Dalrymple has unveiled his tax cut plan, North Dakota voters (who rejected a ballot measure eliminating property taxes altogether in June) will hear from two gubernatorial candidates who want to cut property taxes, but in very different ways. While the incumbent, Dalrymple, would give across-the-board property tax cuts to every property owner (including profitable businesses and the wealthiest North Dakotans) and a token cut to older low-income adults, the Democratic challenger, Ryan Taylor, targets his tax cuts to homeowners and renters, with the largest cuts as a share of income going to low- and moderate-income taxpayers. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy is working up a full analysis of the candidates’ competing tax plans, which have roughly the same revenue cost.