Film tax credits have received a lot of attention in recent days.  Just as Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell was signing the state’s first film tax credit into law, stories out of Iowa and New Jersey, as well as a New York Times article about film credits in Michigan, Texas, Pennsylvania and Utah, provided quite a few good reasons to be skeptical of these credits.

On Monday, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell excitedly signed into law the state’s new film tax credit, with sitcom star Tim Reid (from “WKRP in Cincinnati,” “Sister Sister,” and “That 70’s Show”) there to celebrate.  In order to justify enacting this giveaway for the film industry while Virginians are having to make due with reduced state services, Gov. McDonnell made the asinine claim the credit would produce a 1400% return on investment.  Economists everywhere have no doubt been laughing ever since.

Meanwhile, in New Jersey, fellow 2009 gubernatorial election winner Chris Christie took exactly the opposite approach in vowing to eliminate the state’s film credit in order to help balance the state’s budget.  While Christie clearly had his priorities dead wrong in choosing not to extend the state’s income tax surcharge on millionaires (61% of voters favor the surcharge), he has certainly hit the nail on the head when it comes to this wasteful giveaway.  Not even the cast of “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” appears to have been able to sway him.

Stories this week from the Des Moines Register and New York Times provide some very timely evidence regarding the wisdom of Christie’s approach, as well as the folly of McDonnell’s.  In Iowa, the Register reports that new criminal charges have been filed in the state’s ongoing film tax credit scandal.  Specifically, three moviemakers have been charged with inflating the value of their expenses in order to increase their take from the state’s film credit program.  A $225 broom, $900 stepladder, and 16,000% markup on lighting equipment are among the bogus expenses claimed by the filmmakers. 

The steady drumbeat of discouraging news surrounding Iowa’s film tax credit makes clear that Virginia is facing an uphill battle when it comes to policing this program.

The New York Times this week explored a more specific attribute of state film tax credits: the steps states are taking to prevent movies they dislike from receiving taxpayer dollars.  In Michigan, a sequel to a cannibalism-themed horror movie that was supported by state film tax credits was rejected for subsidy this time around because the state’s film commissioner determined that “this film is unlikely to promote tourism in Michigan or to present or reflect Michigan in a positive light.”  Michigan is by no means alone in enforcing this standard.  Films made in Pennsylvania can be denied tax credits if the movie in question does not “tend to foster a positive image” of the state. 

Texas possesses a similar requirement, which apparently was used to prevent the makers of a film about the Waco raid from even applying for film tax credits. 

And in Utah, the state’s Film Commission director admitted to withholding credits from films that he wouldn’t feel comfortable taking the governor to see. Whether or not this rule of thumb varies with the theatrical tastes of the governor in office at the time remains to be seen.  Upon reading the Times story, one blogger with the Baltimore Sun went so far as to argue that these provisions show that “states want propaganda from filmmakers.”  They certainly beg the question: If state taxpayers subsidize the film industry, is it inevitable that state governments will censor movies before they're made?

ITEP, CTJ, and dozens if not hundreds of other organizations have argued for years that a well-designed sales tax should apply to nearly all retail sales, including both goods and services. We have shifted over the years from an economy in which most people sell goods to an economy in which most people sell services. Taxing only the sale of goods is an antiquated and inadequate approach for any state or local government to take.

So why don't all states with sales taxes expand them to apply to services? The answer has nothing to do with what's good policy and has everything to do with politics. Pretty much every business that provides a service can conjure up some argument as to why this particular service is vital to the health and happiness of the state's residents, and from there will argue that a tax (no matter how minimal) will destroy their ability to provide this service.

The most recent example comes from Washington, DC. The DC yoga lobby flexed their political muscle yesterday, urging yoga consumers (apparently known as yogis) across the District of Columbia to oppose expanding the District’s sales tax base to include yoga services and gym memberships.  The “DC Yogis Against the Yoga Tax” — which appears to be a coalition of yoga studios, teachers, and consumers — argues in their boilerplate letter to the Council that “most yogis and gym members are middle income-ers who've simply made it a priority to invest in their health and well-being.  The DC Council should reward their behavior, and encourage more people to take responsibility similarly for their own well-being.” 

Their plea then subtly attempts to downplay the revenue that could be gained by a tax on yoga, implying that such a tax would encourage people to abandon yoga, and therefore result in losses in productivity, self-reliance, and basic human functioning — all of which would adversely impact DC’s coffers.

If you live in the District of Columbia, we suggest that you write to your council member to tell them you support this tax proposal, which is essentially just an attempt to expand the base of the sales tax.

For more information, the DC Fair Budget coalition has additional details on the proposed sales tax base expansion, as well as on fiscal 2011 revenue options more broadly.  Also see the DC Fiscal Policy Institute’s take on sales tax base expansion, and on the recent outcry from the yoga community.

DC's yoga lobby is not unique. Maryland’s recent attempt to tax a handful of services met similar obstacles.  After proposing a list of perfectly sensible expansions of the sales tax base, industry lobbyists skillfully removed their clients from the list, one-by-one, until only the computer services industry remained (and of course, in time, the computer services industry was eventually able to avoid taxation as well). 

During all of this, the circling of the Annapolis capital building by lawn care trucks provided one of the most memorable and oft-cited examples of the influence that special-interests can have in a tax policy debate. 

For more on the importance of taxing services, be sure to read this recent op-ed by Sharon Parks of the Michigan League for Human Services.  In it she explains the history and merits of taxing services in Michigan, and advocates strongly for the proposal put forth by Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm to expand the state’s sales tax base to include a host of new services, and to return some of the revenue gained to Michiganders via a 0.5 percentage point decrease in the sales tax rate.

Across the nation, state lawmakers wary of further increasing their general sales tax rates are looking (sensibly) for ways of broadening the tax base in order to maximize their "bang for the buck" from the existing tax rates. As a recent New York Times survey documents, half a dozen states are thinking seriously about expanding their sales tax to include previously untaxed services, from haircuts to hot-air-balloon rides.

From a policy perspective, this approach is a slam dunk: a good first principle for sales tax design is that your sales tax liability should depend only on how much you spend — not on what you buy. However, proposals to tax services in Maryland and Michigan have recently run aground because of politics, not policy.

But there is a much more straightforward (and more politically viable) sales tax base broadening strategy that virtually every state can tap right now. Interestingly, even the Wall Street Journal found it difficult to argue against a growing effort by states to enforce collection of their "use tax" (a companion to the sales tax that is designed to apply to goods and services purchased in other states).

From a policy perspective, this is every bit as sensible as taxing services: if you buy a book, the sales tax should be the same whether you buy it in a store or on-line. But the politics are substantially more promising in this case: among the parties most aggrieved by the use tax loophole are small, "bricks and mortar" businesses that collect sales taxes on all their purchases and face a clear tax-based disadvantage compared to Amazon.com and other Internet-based retailers.

In the wake of recently passed legislation in Colorado designed to encourage more taxpayers to pay the use tax on their own, more states will likely seek to replicate Colorado's approach.

State budget woes appear to be spurring an increasing amount of interest in re-examining state tax breaks.  The Governors of both Michigan and Idaho have taken steps to ramp up the scrutiny directed at their state’s tax breaks, while a new report out of Oklahoma and an editorial highlighting legislation in Georgia this week have urged similar actions.

In Michigan, the Detroit Free Press urged the adoption of Governor Granholm’s proposal to thoroughly analyze the merits of every tax break, and to saddle most breaks with sunset provisions that would force lawmakers to either debate and renew these breaks, or to let them expire.  This proposal would help to remedy the lack of scrutiny given to tax breaks because of their exclusion from the appropriations process.  Notably, the proposal’s use of sunsets as a mechanism for forcing review seems to resemble a law enacted in Oregon just last year.

In Georgia, the need for additional scrutiny of tax breaks is even more desperate.  Because the state lacks a tax expenditure report, Georgia lawmakers are not even aware of the full range and cost of special breaks that their tax system provides.  SB 206, which was endorsed by a Macon Telegraph editorial this week, would remedy this problem by finally requiring the creation of such a report.  The editorial rightly points out that the bill could be strengthened by requiring an analysis of each tax break’s effectiveness, but at this point, even simply producing a list of tax breaks and their costs would be a major step forward.  The Georgia Budget and Policy Institute has been pushing for the creation of such a report for many years.

Idaho governor Butch Otter has also shown some tentative interest in figuring out whether his state’s tax breaks are worth their cost.  While Governor Otter continues to hold out hope that the state’s revenues will rebound soon, he also recently directed the state’s Tax Commission to study sales tax exemptions in the event that closing some of those exemptions becomes necessary to fill the state’s budget gap next year.  If done carefully, the studies produced by the Tax Commission could provide a wealth of information on breaks that have so far received a relatively small amount of scrutiny.
    
The Oklahoma Policy Institute has also added to the progress being made on this issue with a new report outlining what should be done to scrutinize tax breaks in a systematic fashion.  Their report, titled “Let There Be Light: Making Oklahoma’s Tax Expenditures More Transparent and Accountable,” provides twelve specific recommendations for realizing this vision.  Among those recommendations are: improving the state’s existing tax expenditure report, sunsetting all tax incentives, requiring the extension of a sunsetting incentive to undergo a “performance review,” and developing a unified economic development budget.

There isn't much in the world of state tax policy on which folks can agree, but surely most would say that someone's age shouldn't determine tax liability to the extent that it does in states like Michigan, which offers an exclusion upwards of $86,000 for married couples with qualifying pension and retirement income. All retired public employees (including teachers and government workers) enjoy a full income tax exclusion on those retirement benefits too. But the violation of horizontal equity is especially egregious when you consider that elderly workers earning wages actually have to pay taxes on their income.

Estimates are that ending this disparity could bring in about $700 million in revenue annually. The Michigan League for Human Services has been talking about these elderly preferences for awhile, asking the question, "Can Michigan afford such generosity?" As the state continues to grapple with budget shortfalls into the foreseeable future, the answer is an unequivocal no.

Michigan gubernatorial candidate State Representative Alma Wheeler Smith is calling for the restructuring of the state's tax structure. Michigan is one of a handful of states with a flat income tax, and its fiscal woes are infamous. Rep. Smith feels that now is the time for a complete restructuring of the state's tax system, including making Michigan's income tax graduated and lowering the state's sales tax rate while extending the sales tax base to include more services.

Representative Smith isn't the only person running for Governor who is turning to income tax reform in these difficult times. Both Democratic gubernatorial candidates in Illinois have also called for significant changes to the Illinois tax structure, including reforming their state's flat rate income tax. For more on Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and Comptroller Dan Hynes' tax reform plans, see ITEP's report. Progressive income taxes are an important tool for states struggling in this current economic downturn. Read more about the benefits in ITEP's Policy Brief on progressive income taxes.

This week, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), in partnership with state groups in forty-one states, released the 3rd edition of “Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States.”  The report found that, by an overwhelming margin, most states tax their middle- and low-income families far more heavily than the wealthy.  The response has been overwhelming.

In Michigan, The Detroit Free Press hit the nail on the head: “There’s nothing even remotely fair about the state’s heaviest tax burden falling on its least wealthy earners.  It’s also horrible public policy, given the hard hit that middle and lower incomes are taking in the state’s brutal economic shift.  And it helps explain why the state is having trouble keeping up with funding needs for its most vital services.  The study provides important context for the debate about how to fix Michigan’s finances and shows how far the state really has to go before any cries of ‘unfairness’ to wealthy earners can be taken seriously.”

In addition, the Governor’s office in Michigan responded by reiterating Gov. Granholm’s support for a graduated income tax.  Currently, Michigan is among a minority of states levying a flat rate income tax.

Media in Virginia also explained the study’s importance.  The Augusta Free Press noted: “If you believe the partisan rhetoric, it’s the wealthy who bear the tax burden, and who are deserving of tax breaks to get the economy moving.  A new report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and the Virginia Organizing Project puts the rhetoric in a new light.”

In reference to Tennessee’s rank among the “Terrible Ten” most regressive state tax systems in the nation, The Commercial Appeal ran the headline: “A Terrible Decision.”  The “terrible decision” to which the Appeal is referring is the choice by Tennessee policymakers to forgo enacting a broad-based income tax by instead “[paying] the state’s bills by imposing the country’s largest combination of state and local sales taxes and maintaining the sales tax on food.”

In Texas, The Dallas Morning News ran with the story as well, explaining that “Texas’ low-income residents bear heavier tax burdens than their counterparts in all but four other states.”  The Morning News article goes on to explain the study’s finding that “the media and elected officials often refer to states such as Texas as “low-tax” states without considering who benefits the most within those states.”  Quoting the ITEP study, the Morning News then points out that “No-income-tax states like Washington, Texas and Florida do, in fact, have average to low taxes overall.  Can they also be considered low-tax states for poor families?  Far from it.”

Talk of the study has quickly spread everywhere from Florida to Nevada, and from Maryland to Montana.  Over the coming months, policymakers will need to keep the findings of Who Pays? in mind if they are to fill their states’ budget gaps with responsible and fair revenue solutions.

Read ITEP's New Report: Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of Tax Systems in All 50 States

By an overwhelming margin, most states tax their middle- and low-income families far more heavily than the wealthy, according to a new study by the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy (ITEP).

“In the coming months, lawmakers across the nation will be forced to make difficult decisions about budget-balancing tax changes—which makes it vital to understand who is hit hardest by state and local taxes right now,” said Matthew Gardner, lead author of the study, Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States. “The harsh reality is that most states require their poor and middle-income taxpayers to pay the most taxes as a share of income.”

Nationwide, the study found that middle- and low-income non-elderly families pay much higher shares of their income in state and local taxes than do the very well-off:

-- The average state and local tax rate on the best-off one percent of families is 6.4 percent before accounting for the tax savings from federal itemized deductions. After the federal offset, the effective tax rate on the best off one percent is a mere 5.2 percent.

-- The average tax rate on families in the middle 20 percent of the income spectrum is 9.7 percent before the federal offset and 9.4 percent after—almost twice the effective rate that the richest people pay.

-- The average tax rate on the poorest 20 percent of families is the highest of all. At 10.9 percent, it is more than double the effective rate on the very wealthy.

“Fairness is in the eye of the beholder.” noted Gardner. “But virtually anyone would agree that this upside-down approach to state and local taxes is astonishingly inequitable.”

The “Terrible Ten” Most Regressive Tax Systems

Ten states—Washington, Florida, Tennessee, South Dakota, Texas, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Alabama—are particularly regressive. These “Terrible Ten” states ask poor families—those in the bottom 20% of the income scale—to pay almost six times as much of their earnings in taxes as do the wealthy. Middle income families in these states pay up to three-and-a-half times as high a share of their income as the wealthiest families. “Virtually every state has a regressive tax system,” noted Gardner. “But these ten states stand out for the extraordinary degree to which they have shifted the cost of funding public investments to their very poorest residents.”

The report identifies several factors that make these states more regressive than others:

-- The most regressive states generally either do not levy an income tax, or levy the tax at a flat rate;

-- These states typically have an especially high reliance on regressive sales and excise taxes;

-- These states usually do not allow targeted low-income tax credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit; these tax credits are especially effective in reducing state tax unfairness.

“For lawmakers seeking to make their tax systems less unfair, there is an obvious strategy available,” noted Gardner. “Shifting state and local revenues away from sales and excise taxes, and towards the progressive personal income tax, will make tax systems fairer for low- and middle income families. Conversely, states that choose to balance their budgets by further increasing the general sales tax or cigarette taxes will make their tax systems even more unbalanced and unfair.”

Implications for State Budget Battles in 2010

“In the coming months, many states’ lawmakers will convene to deal with fiscal shortfalls even worse than those they faced last year,” Gardner said. “Lawmakers may choose to close these budget gaps in the same way that they have done all too often in the past—through regressive tax hikes. Or they may decide instead to ask wealthier families to pay tax rates more commensurate with their incomes. In either case, the path that states choose in the upcoming year will have a major impact on the wellbeing of their citizens—and on the fairness of state and local taxes.”

Michigan lawmakers are currently operating under a temporary budget that should last until the end of the month. But K-12 education funding wasn't included in this temporary measure and Michigan's budget director said that a K-12 budget had to be signed by tomorrow if the state was going to make payments to local school districts. The state's Department of Education released a statement Monday saying that without a state budget, they can't get federal funds that help pay for special education and programs that benefit students living in low-income districts.

At around midnight on Thursday, lawmakers approved a K-12 education budget that reduces spending by $165 per pupil rather than the proposed $218. The Senate voted to pay for the increased education spending by freezing the state's Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) at 10 percent of the federal credit (the credit was scheduled to increase to 20%) and reducing the state's film tax credit. The Governor is expected to sign the K-12 budget into law. But the fate of these revenue raising provisions isn't certain in the House, which won't meet again until Tuesday.

Instead of chopping away at one of the most successful anti-poverty programs in the country during a recession, the EITC, lawmakers should turn to eliminating some of the special tax breaks that Michiganders over the age of 65 enjoy. Late last week Brian Dickerson, a columnist for the Detroit Free Press, wrote, "I'm not convinced that Michigan needs to start kicking senior citizens out of their hospital beds. But we should certainly tax some of them more heavily, especially if we want their grandchildren to inherit a viable state."

The Michigan League of Human Services recently released a brief which raised the insightful question: Can the state really afford the generosity offered the elderly through the state's tax code? Read the brief here. Estimates are that preferences cost the state well over $650 million annually and the cost will likely increase as the population ages.

If you’re a state legislator, chances are good that you’ve spent the better part of the last twelve to eighteen months struggling to find options for bringing your state’s budget into balance.  Chances are equally good that, while you’d like to stop thinking about the subject, circumstances won’t allow it.  After all, some thirty-six states are expected to face budget deficits in fiscal year 2011, even after forty-eight states closed budget gaps totaling $168 billion for the current fiscal year.

In this context, then, state legislators will be forced to evaluate even more stringently each program funded by the public, whether through the regular appropriations process or via foregone tax collections.  One good place to start would be to reconsider the wisdom of offering subsidies through the tax code for the purposes of film, television, and other media productions.  As the Los Angeles Times reports this week, more than 40 states now provide tax credits or other tax reductions for such purposes, often at a very high cost to the state’s budget and just as frequently with little to no understanding of whether they are producing any real benefits for the state’s economy. 

For instance, Michigan is home to one of the most generous such subsidies in the nation: a credit equal to 42 percent of filmmakers’ production expenses, which could cost the state as much as $150 million next year.  Yet, as one Michigan Senator admitted to the Times, “We are still not sure what exactly our tax dollars are being spent on with these films…If we don’t know that, how can we justify it?”

Those states that do examine the uses to which scarce tax dollars are being put may not like what they find.  In Iowa this past week, three state officials – the Director and Deputy Director of the Department of Economic Development, as well as the manager of the Iowa Film Office – either resigned or were fired in the wake of reports that the state’s tax credit program was subject to serious abuses, including the purchase of two luxury automobiles that were not actually used in making in a movie but instead went to film executives.  Governor Chet Culver has temporarily suspended the program, which, by some estimates, could pay out more than $300 million in tax subsidies if it resumes.  For more on Iowa’s film tax credit and the need for greater transparency, visit the Iowa Fiscal Partnership.

For a governor who claims to support progressive taxation, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm sure has a funny way of showing it.  Her recently released budget proposal would raise revenue by slashing the EITC while hiking taxes on tobacco, liquor licenses, and bottled water.  Her budget would also prevent the personal exemption from increasing as a result of inflation indexing, would levy a tax on vending machine purchases, would (very modestly) scale back the state's film tax credit, and would attempt to expand the sales tax to include a few more services -- such as live events and landscaping.  And to top things off, the Governor would use some of the money raised by these hikes to lower taxes paid by business -- specifically, by phasing out the Michigan Business Tax surcharge.

Overall, this package of tax changes is almost guaranteed to be grossly regressive.  Admittedly, the Governor is working within some pretty restrictive guidelines, established both by her own short-sighted campaign promises, and by the state's constitutional prohibition on creating a graduated rate income tax.  But a look at the types of solutions proposed by the Michigan League for Human Services (MILHS) is enough to show that there are better approaches to addressing Michigan’s recurring budget deficits.  Take a look at this recent statement from the MILHS outlining the ways in which "vulnerable people and the working poor are being asked to sacrifice to balance the budget" under Governor Granholm's proposal.

It's one thing for the federal government to allow a one-time amnesty for Americans who've hid their income from the IRS in offshore accounts. (See related story.) The "stick" is effective (prison) and the "carrot" is not overly generous (since these Americans will pay taxes, interest, and penalties).

But lately several states are providing their own tax amnesties that are very different and very misguided. According to a recent article in State Tax Notes (subscription required), the thirteen state tax amnesties already conducted or promised this year ties the 2002 record for most amnesties offered in one year.  Assuming that DC Mayor Adrian Fenty signs the budget (which contains a tax amnesty) that was recently passed by the DC Council, that record will be broken.  Pennsylvania and Michigan, however, still have a chance to avoid adding to the list of states enacting these short-sighted measures. Amnesties have been proposed within each state's legislature.

As we've argued before, allowing delinquent taxpayers to pay the taxes they owe with little or no penalty is unfair to those diligent taxpayers who paid their taxes on time.

This unfairness is compounded greatly if the interest owed on the late tax bill is reduced, or even waived entirely, as was done this year in Delaware.  Waiving the interest owed on late tax bills essentially means that delinquent taxpayers are granted an interest-free loan by the state, for no reason other than the fact that the state is now desperately in need of money. Had all taxpayers been aware of the possibility of this interest-free loan, the rate of noncompliance would undoubtedly have skyrocketed. 

Repeatedly offering amnesties, as is increasingly becoming the norm, harms the ability of states to enforce their tax laws.  With record numbers of tax amnesties having been offered in the last seven years, delinquent taxpayers can usually assume that they'll be offered an easy way out eventually -- if only they're patient enough.  As one revenue official from Kansas recently put it, "if you have amnesties too often, you're literally training taxpayers not to pay."

Last Thursday, as an economic consulting firm released a report finding that the Michigan Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) "generates positive benefits for residents in Michigan," sources close to the state's governor revealed that she had decided to cut that very tax credit.

The federal EITC was created in 1975 and expanded several times since then, including in 1986 by President Reagan, who called it the “the best anti-poverty, the best pro-family, the best job-creation measure to come out of Congress.” Over the years, many states have created their own EITCs to supplement the federal one, and a great deal of research shows that these state EITCs are a good investment.

Governor Jennifer Granholm's proposal to balance the state's budget includes a reduction in the state's EITC from 20 to 15 percent of the federal credit. This proposal can't even be described as penny wise and pound foolish, because it's going to cause unnecessary pain immediately. The new report from Anderson Economic Group finds that "the Michigan EITC reduces poverty and increases income by an average of 3% for those who receive the tax credit...the EITC generates positive economic benefits for residents in Michigan." The report goes on to say that if monies used to fund the state EITC were used elsewhere, the funds "would not be distributed so widely in the state or used as productively as putting money into the hands of families that then spend this money in their communities."

The EITC cut is only one component of the Governor's proposal. She would also solve the state's budget shortfall by expanding the sales tax base to entertainment services including tickets to concerts and athletic events, increasing the state's cigarette tax, and levying a penny sales tax on the purchase of bottled water. Expanding the state's sales tax to include more services is a smart plan, but cutting the EITC at a time when many Michigan families are struggling is a terrible one.

A broad base is an essential element of a good tax system. Fulfilling the principles of "horizontal equity," and "economic neutrality," both depend upon the use of a broad tax base. Unfortunately, the temptation to carve out special tax breaks for politically popular causes, or for powerful constituencies, if often irresistible to lawmakers.

But efforts are currently underway in Michigan to undo some of these special tax breaks, and a tax reform commission in California is at least pretending to consider a reform that would help pave the way for a careful reconsideration of many of that state's tax breaks. Furthermore, policymakers in North Carolina have expressed a strong desire to return to the task of base-broadening this fall, even as efforts to include base-broadening revenue-raisers in this year's budget agreement seem to have failed.

Earlier this month, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm stated her desire to eliminate between $500 million and $1 billion in special tax breaks as a way to reduce the state's looming deficit. While accomplishing such a feat will inevitably involve an uphill political battle, Michiganders should be grateful that the Michigan League for Human Services (MLHS) is closely following the action. MLHS Chairman Lynn Jondahl hit the nail on the head when he urged lawmakers to ask themselves, in reference to the state's film tax credit, "Would you be willing to appropriate $6 million to MGM, say, to make this film in Michigan? We're paying you to do something in lieu of filling pot holes or funding mental health treatment. Which do we value more?"

In California, a tax reform commission that so far has shown interest mostly in cutting the progressive income tax is at least listening politely to a different idea. The so-called "blue proposal" currently before the commission, presented as a less regressive alternative to the much-ballyhooed flat-tax proposal supported by Governor Schwarzenegger, would require special tax breaks to be presented in the Governor's budget, saddled with a "sunset" provision, and evaluated based on their effectiveness in achieving their stated objectives. Of course, adopting this approach will amount to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic if the commission acts on its apparent zeal for moving away from income taxes and towards regressive consumption taxes. And the "blue proposal" has its warts as well: provisions that would impose a spending cap and create a new "net receipts" tax in lieu of the current corporate income tax have progressives feeling, well, blue. But the tax-expenditure element of the "blue proposal" is a welcome dose of thoughtful policy at a time when California surely needs it.

Finally, in a recent development out of North Carolina, base-broadening appears to be off the agenda for the immediate future, though policymakers have expressed a strong interest in returning to the issue this fall. When they do return to the issue, they would be wise to review these recommendations, recently released from the North Carolina Budget and Tax Center, explaining how to broaden the state's tax base while simultaneously offsetting any potentially harmful effects on low- and moderate-income families.

Last week brought with it a flurry of news stories discussing the issue of how to pay for transportation infrastructure. This topic is never too far from the agenda in statehouses across the country, in large part because most states fund their infrastructures primarily with a fixed-rate gasoline tax (levied as a specific number of cents per gallon) which inevitably becomes inadequate over time as inflation erodes the value of that tax rate. What's more, with fuel efficiency becoming an increasingly important criterion in Americans' car-buying decisions, drivers are able to travel the same distance while purchasing less gasoline, and paying less in gasoline taxes.

With all this in mind, Mississippi's top transportation official last week publicly stated that the state's lawmakers need to increase their flat 18.5 cent per gallon gas tax rate. As evidence of this need, the official also noted that 25% of the state's bridges are deficient.

In a similar vein, one recent op-ed in Michigan called for increasing the state's gas tax and restructuring it to prevent it from continually losing its value due to inflation. Another op-ed ran in the same paper that day, this one written by the President of the Michigan Petroleum Association, insisting that the state eliminate the gas tax altogether and pay for the lost revenue with increased sales taxes. The most obvious flaw with this plan is that it would shift the responsibility for paying taxes away from long-distance commuters and those owners of heavier (and generally less fuel-efficient) vehicles -- despite the fact that these are precisely the people who benefit most from the government's provision of roads.

More news coverage of the transportation issue came out of South Dakota last week, where a committee of legislators is currently in search of additional revenue to plug the hole created by predictably sluggish gas tax revenues. While some have expressed an interest in raising the gas tax, others have suggested replacing it entirely with hugely increased licensing fees. But licensing fees are not as capable as the gas tax in charging frequent and long-distance drivers for the roads they use.

The best way to ensure that those drivers pay for the roads they use, however, is to simply levy a tax on each mile they drive (known as a "vehicle miles traveled" tax, or VMT). While the idea has yet to be implemented in practice in the U.S., recent coverage of a pilot project involving 1,500 drivers in New Mexico shows that such a tax is a very real possibility in the future. Basically, a small computer is installed in each car which keeps track of the number of miles driven. That information is then reported to the tax collection agency, and the driver is sent a bill.

This method avoids the scenario in which drivers of vehicles of similar weights (which produce similar wear-and-tear on any given road) can end up with vastly different gas tax bills due differences in fuel efficiency. Interestingly, this new study is examining a system that would allow the computer to know which state somebody is driving in, so that the correct amount of tax can be paid to the correct state. Unsurprisingly, despite the public finance appeal of this method, privacy concerns remain a major obstacle to implementation.