Consumption Taxes, Income Taxes, and Revenue Sensitivity: States and the Great Recession

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 349-381
Author(s):  
Howard Chernick ◽  
Cordelia Reimers

This article uses an income-distributional approach to state tax sensitivity to examine the assumption that consumption taxes are more stable than income taxes. We estimate the 2007 to 2009 change in tax revenues as a function of state income distributions and tax burdens by income class. We estimate tax burdens as a function of income tax shares and consumption tax shares. We then simulate the change in tax revenues with tax shares at the national average. If high-income-tax states were to lower their reliance on this tax, the revenue decline during the recession would have been greater. For high consumption tax states, the revenue decline under higher income tax shares would have been smaller. Had they shifted toward consumption taxes, income tax reliant states would not have reduced the cyclical sensitivity of tax revenues during the Great Recession. The interaction between tax burdens and recession shocks by income class is key to these results.

2008 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas K. Barney ◽  
Tonya K. Flesher

Farmers have benefited from unique tax treatment since the beginning of the income tax law. This paper explores agricultural influences on the passage of the income tax in 1913, using both qualitative and quantitative analysis. The results show that agricultural interests were influential in the development and passage of tax/tariff laws. The percentage of congressmen with agricultural ties explains the strong affection for agriculture. Discussion in congressional debates and in agricultural journals was passionate and patriotic in support of equity for farmers. The quantitative analysis reveals that the percentage farm population was a significant predictor of passage of the 16th Amendment by the states and of adoption of state income taxes in the 20th century.


2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 245-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan R. Smith ◽  
Philip Bailey ◽  
Harry Haney ◽  
Debra Salbador ◽  
John Greene

Abstract Federal and state income taxes are calculated for hypothetical forest landowners in two income brackets across 23 states in the Midwest and Northeast to illustrate the effects of differential state tax treatment. The income tax liability is calculated in a year in which the timber owners harvest $200,000 worth of timber. State income taxes ranged from highs of $13,427 for middle-income landowners and $18,527 for high-income landowners in Maine to no tax burden in New Hampshire and South Dakota. Calculated state and federal income taxes are based on 2004 tax regulations and rates. After-tax land expectation values calculated for a forest landowner in the Northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan illustrate the importance of tax planning on returns to a timber investment. The results support the need for adequate tax accounting.


2008 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-126
Author(s):  
Nathan R. Smith ◽  
Phillip Bailey ◽  
Harry Haney ◽  
Debra Salbador ◽  
John Greene

Abstract Federal and state income taxes are calculated for hypothetical forest landowners in two income brackets across 13 states in the West to illustrate the effects of differential state tax treatment. The income tax liability is calculated in a year in which the timber owners harvest $200,000 worth of timber. State income taxes range from highs of $19,693 for middle-income and $34,993 for high-income landowners in Oregon to no income tax in Alaska, Nevada, Washington and Wyoming. After-tax land expectation values for a forest landowner in Oregon are also calculated to illustrate the importance of tax planning on returns to a timber investment. The need for adequate tax accounting is supported by the results.


1996 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
William C. Siegel ◽  
Harry L. Haney ◽  
Daniel M. Peters ◽  
Pete Bettinger ◽  
Debra S. Callihan

Abstract The structure and provisions of state income taxes are detailed for timber owners in 19 states of the Northeast and Midwest. Using 1994 federal and state income tax rules, the tax liability for a hypothetical married couple with timber sale income was calculated for two federal income tax rate brackets (medium and high income levels) for states in the Northeast and Midwest that impose an income tax. At the medium income level, the state portion of the total income tax liability ranged from 12.7% in Pennsylvania to 25.6% in Delaware. At the high income level, the state portion ranged from 11.1% in Pennsylvania to 24.9% in Minnesota. For both income levels, New Hampshire had the lowest state portion of the total tax liability when considering their business profits tax (12% for the medium and 7% for the high income level). The provision most significantly affecting state income tax liability was the tax rate schedule. Installment sales provide an alternative tax planning strategy for those timber owners who qualify as investors rather than a business and who are in the lowest federal tax bracket. Several states also impose taxes other than an income tax when timber is harvested. For example, Minnesota and New Hampshire both impose a minimum 10% yield tax on the timber's stumpage value. These levies significantly affect the total tax liability on harvest income. North. J. Appl. For. 13(1):8-15.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-49
Author(s):  
Tomasz Wołowiec

Public discussions concerning tax system reforms are dominated by the view that lowering taxes is the only panacea for stimulating economic growth. But is this really so? To be able to answer this question we need to examine how the level of fiscal burden and structure of budget tax revenues are correlated with GDP growth rate (27 EU countries, data 2000-2018). A relationship that is particularly examined is the correlation between the level of fiscal burden in personal income tax and economic growth rate. Considerably less attention is paid in various analyses to the influence of the structure of budget tax revenues on economic growth.


2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 166-184
Author(s):  
Edward J. McCaffery

The traditional view of tax holds that consumption taxes fail tax the yield to capital, whereas income taxes do, leading to John Stuart Mill's criticism of the income tax as a "double tax" on wealth that is saved. A better analytic understanding illustrates that there are two types of consumption taxes. A prepaid consumption or (equivalently) wage tax indeed ignores the yield to capital. But a consistent progressive postpaid consumption tax gets at such yield, at the individual level, when but only when the returns to capital are used to elevate lifestyles in material terms. Such a tax allows "ordinary" savings that move around labor earnings, in constant dollar terms, to different periods of an individual's life, such as times of retirement or heightened medical or educational needs. Because a progressive postpaid consumption tax falls on the yield to capital at the right time-when its use at the individual level becomes manifest-all other taxes on capital, such as capital gains, gift and estate, and corporate income taxes, can and should be repealed, in the name of fairness.


Author(s):  
Elizabeth C. Ekmekjian ◽  
James C. Wilkerson ◽  
Robert W. Bing

Opening day of the Major League Baseball‟s 2<span>002 season fell on April 1 of that year. After the National Anthem was sung, the crowd applauded as the New York Mets took the field, and the umpire yelled, “play ball.” The State of New York also cheered. Why? New York, like a number of other states and localities, imposes an income tax on athletes that visit its borders. So, when Tex- as Rangers shortstop, Alex Rodriguez, the highest paid baseball player during the 2002 season with a salary of $22 million, played 4 regular season games in the Big Apple, he incurred a tax liability of approximately $34,250. This state income taxation of nonresident professional athletes is commonly referred to as “the jock tax.” This paper introduces the reader to the jock tax beginning with a brief explanation of state income taxes, continuing with a discussion of its complexi- ties and historical/current issues faced by athletes, teams and the states through implementation of the tax. The paper concludes with the broader implications of a state or local taxing jurisdiction's powers to tax its nonresident visitors. </span>


2020 ◽  
pp. 106591292097791
Author(s):  
Todd Donovan ◽  
Shaun Bowler

We test hypotheses about individual-level (partisanship and self-interest) and state-level (tax policy) factors that may shape public attitudes about raising taxes. Respondents were given a scenario where a state budget needed to be balanced with spending cuts or tax increases, and a scenario where either state sales or state income taxes would be increased. We find partisanship, ideology, and self-interest had substantial relationships with how people responded. Democrats, liberals, and those with fewer resources preferred tax increases over spending cuts, and preferred income tax increases over sales tax increases. Republicans (particularly wealthy Republicans), conservatives, and those with more resources preferred spending cuts to tax increases, and preferred sales tax increases over income tax increases. We also find income tax increases and higher tax burdens may correspond with preferences for cutting spending rather than raising taxes, but variation in the rates of a particular tax was not associated with attitudes about raising that tax. Our results suggest an electorate that may be somewhat more sophisticated about fiscal policy than what has been portrayed in several influential studies.


1985 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
William D. Samson

In this paper, an author discovers his heritage: the income taxes which evolved in the South of the United States during the nineteenth century. These taxes are of interest because many tax concepts which are now taken for granted were developed during this time. Of particular interest are the common factors and events which led most southern states and the Confederacy to experiment with an income tax. These experiments influenced the structure of the United States federal and state income taxes in the next century.


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