State News Quick Hits: Expert Advice Versus Politics in DC, NE, NY and KY

The District of Columbia’s Tax Revision Commission heard from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP, CTJ’s partner organization), last week about options for lessening the regressivity of DC’s tax system. In testimony before the Commission, ITEP’s Matt Gardner explained how enhancements to DC’s standard deduction, personal exemption, and Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) could be enacted without breaking the bank, as long as they’re paired with reforms like phasing-out exemptions and deductions for high-income taxpayers, or eliminating the District’s unusual tax break for out-of-state bond interest.

We got our first glimpse this week of what tax reform could mean for Nebraskans next year.  Members of Nebraska’s Tax Modernization Committee sketched out details of a potential tax reform proposal, but will wait until next month to finalize the plan.  And so far, it looks like the Committee will be sticking to modest, sensible ideas like expanding the sales tax to some household services, indexing tax brackets for inflation, and cutting property taxes (slightly). Considering that Governor Dave Heineman’s commitment to doing away with the personal income tax (or at least significantly cutting it) is the reason for the Committee’s existence, it is a positive sign that its members are steering clear of more radical changes to the income tax.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s first appointed tax commission, the one charged with finding revenue-neutral options to reform the state’s tax system, released its recommendations last week for making the state’s tax code “simpler and fairer”.  Our friends at the Fiscal Policy Institute and New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness called the recommendations “a smorgasbord of reforms with a little something for everyone.”  The ideas include: expanding the sales tax base to services and currently exempted goods and using the new revenue to cut taxes for low- and middle-income families; reforming the corporate and bank franchise tax; and exempting middle-income families from New York’s estate tax. The question now is whether the Governor, (who can hardly find a tax he doesn’t hate), will consider these recommendations. Or, whether he will only focus on ideas coming from a second tax committee he appointed, with former Governor George Pataki at its helm, which is tasked with finding ways to simply cut $2 to $3 billion in taxes next year.

Last September, recommendations from Kentucky’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Tax Reform were released. ITEP deemed the Commission’s 453 page final report filled with tax reform recommendations “worth legislative consideration.” Yet, the Lexington Herald-Leader is reporting that, like the eight other previous tax studies, this report is simply “gathering dust.” Some lawmakers say that 2014 isn’t the year for tax reform, citing a difficult “political climate.” Let’s hope the tide changes and all the Commission’s work doesn’t go unutilized given the fiscal stress the state is already under.