Other than both bordering on Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York aren't generally seen as having too much in common ... until this past week. In agreeing to a budget for fiscal year 2008, policymakers in New York followed the lead of their counterparts in the Mountain State and incorporated combined reporting into their corporate income tax. Combined reporting, as ITEP's February policy brief explains, is the "most effective approach to combating corporate tax avoidance" available to state lawmakers. West Virginia legislation to institute combined reporting last month and, with New York's more recent step forward, the number of states using this essential approach to corporate taxation climbs to twenty. It could climb higher still by year's end, as North Carolina Governor Mike Easley, like the Governors of Massachusetts, Iowa, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, also now supports combined reporting. See this ITEP table to find out where your state stands on this important tax reform.