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.

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.

The Rhode Island Department of Revenue recently released its second annual "Tax Credit and Incentive Report," providing the names, addresses, and size of tax breaks received by Rhode Island businesses under six major tax incentive programs.  This report provides a valuable, and unusually detailed look at where over $82 million in state tax subsidies went during the 2009 fiscal year.  CVS, for example, benefited from over $12 million in special tax subsidies over a twelve month period, while the producers of the "Brotherhood" TV series raked in more than $5 million.  More states would benefit by sharing this type of information with their residents.

But while the "Tax Credit and Incentive Report" does provide a valuable source of raw data for Rhode Island residents and policymakers, the Department of Revenue has regrettably dragged its feet in implementing Phases Two and Three of Rhode Island's broader tax incentive accountability program.  Phase Two, which was supposed to have been completed in October 2008, will eventually detail the degree to which state tax incentives have met the job creation, wage, and benefit objectives for which they were created.  The Rhode Island Poverty Institute has rightly pointed out that "it is impossible to judge the usefulness of these tax credits without the information required in Phase Two of the law." 

Phase Three, which also has yet to be implemented, will require adding the tax credit information released by the Department of Revenue to the state's budget, so that these programs can be considered on a more equal footing with traditional spending programs and subsidies.

Oklahoma also recently made some headlines related to its tax incentive programs.  Last spring, the Oklahoma legislature approved new investment tax credits as a means of attracting Mercury Marine, a boat engine manufacturer, to the state.  Recently, Mercury Marine announced that despite the tax credits, it will be moving a significant number of jobs from Oklahoma to Wisconsin.  Since the legislation authorizing the tax credits explicitly allowed for the state to recover those credits in the event that something along these lines occurred prior to 2012, the company has agreed to refund the credits, with interest.  By tying the credits to some measure of performance on the part of Mercury Marine, Oklahoma was able to avoid a situation where the company could simply take the credits and run. 

Be sure to visit Good Jobs First for more on tax incentive best practices such as these.

Billionaire George Kaiser, head of Kaiser-Francis Oil Co., recently did something unusual for someone in his line of work. He told the truth about the subsidies that the oil and gas industry receives to the Oklahoma House Appropriations and Budget Committee. During his testimony, "Kaiser said he could "say unequivocally" that the tax subsidies in question have never influenced his companies' decisions to drill or restore any well in Oklahoma." Kaiser even joked, "In fact, I may lose my day job as a result of my testimony."

Kaiser focused his comments on the number of Oklahomans who could receive health care (125,000) and the raises that could be given to teachers ($1,300 each) if the state's priorities changed and the average $75 million in tax credits given to the energy industry over the last four years were put toward other priorities.

Business analysts know that if a company is making business decisions based on tax breaks, then the company isn't on very strong footing to begin with. But comments like these made by billionaire businessmen are quite helpful in cutting through the false claims made about taxes.

Speaking of ineffective subsidies, this week the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy released an interesting report Money for Nothing: Do Business Subsidies Create Jobs or Leave Workers in Dire Straights? The report details cases of private West Virginia companies cutting jobs even after receiving taxpayer funded subsidies. Accountability and transparency are necessary to ensure that policymakers and the public aren't funding incentives that ultimately do no real good for West Virginia. The author suggests concrete steps that can be taken to ensure both accountability and transparency, including accessible subsidy disclosure, publishing outcome data, enacting claw-back provisions, and the creation of a unified state development budget.

Despite their obvious unfairness, tax amnesties are a tool frequently used by states during tough budgetary times. By waiving late fees and sometimes reducing the interest rate charged on overdue taxes, state policymakers can provide their state with a quick band-aid fix without having to make the much harder choice of raising taxes or cutting valued services. But penalizing similar taxpayers at different rates dependent only upon whether they decide to pay up during an amnesty period is plainly unfair. The problems associated with amnesties become even worse, however, as soon as a state establishes a habit of repeatedly offering amnesties during tough economic times.

With the possibility of another amnesty always on the horizon, delinquent taxpayers will think twice before settling their debts with the state during normal times, and at normal penalty rates. Creating multiple sets of penalties (one for normal times, and one, lower penalty when budgets shortfalls are projected) therefore reduces fairness by penalizing similar taxpayers differently based only on the timing of their payment, and can also reduce the effectiveness of enforcement efforts and the tax system broadly. These effects can continue long after the most recent amnesty period ends. (Note that this is very similar to the argument against allowing corporations to "repatriate" their profits to the U.S. at a lower rate, a proposal which was recently rejected at the federal level).

Despite the obvious problems, Maryland and New Mexico are both considering legislation to once again provide temporary tax amnesty programs some time in the coming months. New Mexico last provided an amnesty less than a decade ago, while Maryland's last amnesty came in 2001. After that 2001 amnesty, the Maryland comptroller's office noted that "repeated use of amnesties is likely to create cynicism among law-abiding taxpayers, and lessen the need for voluntary compliance with state tax laws, which is vital for our system of taxation". Should another amnesty be offered less than a decade after the 2001 amnesty, growth in taxpayer cynicism seems unavoidable, especially in light of the fact that a similar program offered in 1987 in the state was billed as a "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity for delinquent payers.

Without a doubt, the momentum in favor of such programs is strong. Alabama is already in the mist of an amnesty period (the state last offered an amnesty in 1984). Massachusetts is currently in the process of deciding upon a date for its amnesty program (Massachusetts last provided amnesty in 2003). Connecticut's program is already slated to take effect on May 1st (Connecticut's last amnesty took place in 2002). And Oklahoma just recently closed its most recent amnesty period, just seven years after its 2002 amnesty.

In this environment, it is extremely important for state policymakers to not only oppose more amnesties, but also to convincingly state that another amnesty will not be offered any time in the near future. For states looking to responsibly close their tax gaps, stepping-up enforcement spending is often a route that can produce sizeable returns, and is undoubtedly much more fair than trying to get something for nothing by arbitrarily waiving penalties in an effort to boost voluntary "compliance". For more specific alternatives to the tax amnesty approach, take a look at these recent enforcement recommendations from Oregon's Department of Revenue.

Oklahoma's Senate Finance Committee last week approved a bill that would drop the state's top income tax rate from 5.5 to 5.25 percent and that would remove groceries from the state's sales tax base. The proposal to cut the top income tax rate would reduce tax revenue by $44 million and exempting groceries from sales taxes would cost $245 million. With Oklahoma facing a $600 million budget deficit, why make these changes now?

The cut in the top rate was actually adopted several years ago, but was made contingent on state revenues meeting a target to ensure that the state could afford the tax cut. So, back then, lawmakers recognized that this tax cut would be expensive (though they ignored the fact that it is entirely regressive) and took steps to ensure the state could afford it. But now the state is not meeting that revenue target, the Senate Finance Committee wants to remove it and allow the tax cut to be implemented anyway. Will lawmakers actually approve this tax cut now that it is (by their own measure) unaffordable?

Similar questions could be posed about exempting groceries from the sales tax. To be sure, taxing those purchases is quite regressive, but Oklahoma has in place an income tax credit designed to mitigate the impact this policy has on low-income taxpayers. Since Oklahoma clearly can't afford a loss of tax revenue of this magnitude, why not build upon the income tax credit that's already in place -- an approach that would be less expensive and better targeted to those who need it the most? The Oklahoma Policy Institute has the details on this alternative means of helping Oklahomans struggling to make ends meet.

A report released earlier this month by the Oklahoma Policy Institute offers policymakers in the Sooner State several ideas for negotiating one of the fundamental tensions in state fiscal policy: the inclusion of groceries in a state's sales tax base. On the one hand, including groceries in the base is consistent with the notion that the base for any tax should be as broad as possible. Including groceries in the sales tax base also generates considerable revenue -- in Oklahoma, doing so yielded over $300 million in 2007. On the other hand, taxing groceries is highly regressive. The poorest twenty percent of Oklahomans paid two and a half times as much in grocery taxes, relative to their incomes, as middle income taxpayers in 2007.

Rather than removing groceries from the sales tax base altogether, OK Policy observes that policymakers could expand the state's existing "grocery tax credit," either by raising the value of the credit itself or extending it to additional taxpayers. Such a change would be in line with the recommendations of last year's Oklahoma Task Force on Hunger. To see more of the Oklahoma Policy Institute's work, visit www.okpolicy.org.

With the fall elections a scant two months away, it's never too early to think about the harsh realities and difficult choices that state lawmakers will face once they are sworn in.

As two new fact sheets from the Oklahoma Policy Institute suggest, top on the agenda of Sooner State legislators should be the reconsideration of some of the tax cuts enacted between 2004 and 2006. For instance, reductions in the top personal income tax rate put in place over the past several years have delivered an average tax cut in excess of $11,000 per year for the richest 1 percent of Oklahomans, yet have helped to suppress income tax collections to the point where they have grown by less than half a percentage point each year over the last two fiscal years. As OK Policy observes, those tax dollars, rather than flowing back to the wealthy few, could be devoted to critical public purposes, such as "addressing critical staffing shortages in [Oklahoma's] child welfare and correctional systems."

This week in the Georgia House, lawmakers voted overwhelmingly (166-5) to approve property tax cuts, including the elimination of the state's car tax, that will cost the state more than $750 million when fully phased in. Republican Speaker Pro Tem Mark Burkhalter doesn't seem concerned with offsetting the lost revenue. Responding to concerns about the plan's price tag, he says, "It's very simple. You cut taxes, the economy grows. The economy grows, Georgians prosper. The best way to stem off any recession is to cut taxes. Not to clam up, go home and wait for the storm to pass." We've learned on the federal level that tax cuts simply don't pay for themselves, but clearly legislators in Georgia want to try their own experiment with this flawed (and dangerous) economic myth. The House-passed bill contains another misguided property tax change... a 2% cap on annual increases in a home's value for tax purposes (the cap would be 3% for businesses).

The Georgia Budget and Policy Institute issued a report adding up the costs of the state House's handiwork related to taxes this year and found that the tax bills passed this session would cost as much as $113 million in FY 2009, $473 million in FY 2010, and $798 million in FY 2011.

Coincidentally, the Oklahoma Senate passed a proposed constitutional amendment last week also dealing with caps on increases in a home's taxable value. In this case, the cap would be decreased from 5% to 3% (the 5% cap would remain intact for businesses). Assessment value caps of this sort have recently received much attention in Florida. The unfair way in which these caps provide the greatest relief to long-time residents (creating vastly different property tax bills between neighbors with similar houses) recently drove Florida residents to amend their constitution to patch over the problem in a very imperfect way.

Rounding out the recent trend in debating poorly reasoned property tax cuts is Arizona, where the House narrowly approved a measure to permanently repeal a portion of the property tax that is currently suspended. Allowing the tax to take effect again would raise about $250 million annually for the state, significantly reducing the projected $1.2 billion revenue shortfall for the current fiscal year. If the plan passes, cuts in public services could be the result.

Earlier this month, Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry (D) signed into law the "Taxpayer Transparency Act" which directs the Office of State Finance to "build a web site detailing virtually all expenditures of state funds, including state contracts and tax credits and incentive payments given to businesses." The proposal received widespread bipartisan praise. According to the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, 72 percent of Oklahomans support the creation of the website. Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn has advocated for a similar website to monitor federal spending. The State Chamber of Commerce opposed this bill saying that the legislation, "will shine an unwanted light on those who invest in Oklahoma, and it will make it much more difficult to attract those investors." Undoubtedly the website will be a helpful tool for legislators, the public, and the media. Mark Thomas from the Oklahoma Press Association says this about letting the sunshine in on government spending: "If you want the people of Oklahoma to give you a tax break, go ahead and ask us, but don't expect us to keep it a secret."

This week the Community Action Project blasted the decision by Oklahoma policy makers to use a temporary surge in revenue to justify permanent, unfair tax cuts. CAP says that when voting on the tax cut proposals, legislators did so "knowing only the short-term fiscal impact and without the information that could allow them to evaluate the long-term fiscal sustainability of their choices." The question before legislators now is whether or not to repeal the tax cuts that were scheduled to take place in 2008. Last fall, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities published a study which takes a closer look at specific states that enacted tax cuts in 2006 and highlights the potential damages from "tax cuts on layaway."

Oklahoma lawmakers in the House of Representatives are proposing a tax credit to benefit stay-at-home moms. The theory behind the proposal is that because the state offers a dependent care credit for costs incurred for child care expenses outside the home, stay-at-home moms should be given a similar credit for their work. This proposal brings up issues of discrimination (what about stay at home dads, grandparents?) and perhaps an even larger debate about whether or not the tax code should be used as a mechanism to promote family values. For a provocative article on this issue click here.

Kiplinger reports that business are expected "to mount pitched battles to defeat" TABOR-esque spending tax cap initiatives in Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, and Oregon. In fact, there's a concerted effort forming in Oklahoma that is actually being lead by business groups. The Chairman of Tulsa's Chamber of Commerce was even quoted as saying that TABOR would be a "train wreck" for Oklahoma.

In Oklahoma, Republican and Democratic leaders are feuding over how to dispose of the state's budget surplus, with Republicans pushing for cuts in the top income tax rate and Democrats pushing for an increase in the stand deduction. An analysis by Oklahoma's Community Action Project shows that the standard deduction would be a much better deal for most Oklahomans.