State News Quick Hits: ALEC Under Scrutiny, Closing Corporate Loopholes in DC, and More!

A new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) outlines the anti-tax agenda of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and ALEC scholar and economist, Arthur Laffer.  It explains the multitude of problems with their policy recommendations and the so-called research they produce to make the case for those recommendations.  The CBPP report builds on the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy’s (ITEP) work debunking Arthur Laffer as it examines the “weak foundation of questionable economic and fiscal assumptions and faulty analysis promoted by ALEC and its allies.”

The DC Fiscal Policy Institute explains how closing corporate tax shelters has significantly improved the District of Columbia’s finances.  The city saw its strongest growth in corporate income tax collections in almost two decades, due in part to a reform called “combined reporting” (PDF) that makes it more difficult for companies to disguise their profits as being earned in other states, particularly those with low or no corporate income tax.

This Columbus Dispatch article cites academic research, policy experts and the Congressional Budget Office to examine Ohio Governor Kasich’s repeated assertion that tax cuts lead to jobs, including critiques that “when one dives deeper into the numbers, the correlation between income-tax cuts for small-business owners and more jobs is strained at best.”  The story also covers that larger supply-side economics debate, which the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) has engaged with here and elsewhere.

Tax hikes on low- and moderate-income working families are under debate in both Vermont and North Carolina where lawmakers have proposed reducing the benefit of their states’ Earned Income Tax Credits (EITCs) (see this PDF on state EITC policy). Vermont’s Governor Shumlin wants to cut the EITC and redirect the revenue to child care subsidy programs. In North Carolina, lawmakers are advancing a bill that would cut the EITC from 5 to 4.5 percent of the federal credit and potentially let it expire altogether – a rejection of Washington’s recent five-year extension of a more robust federal EITC. A recent op-ed by Jack Hoffman at Vermont’s Public Assets Institute as well as a new brief from the North Carolina Budget and Tax Center both cite ITEP’s Who Pays data to make a case for why each state should maintain its EITC.

North Carolina’s newly-elected Governor, Pat McCrory, is keeping everyone guessing about his plans for tax reform in the Tarheel State.  During his state of the state address this week, McCrory said tax reform would be a priority of his administration but was short on specifics, saying only that he wants to lower rates, close loopholes and make North Carolina’s tax code more business friendly. The state’s Senate leadership has been touting a plan to eliminate the personal and corporate income taxes and replace the lost revenue with a higher sales tax and new business license fee.  It remains to be seen whether the Governor will follow the Senate’s lead or puts forth his own version of reform.