District of Columbia: August 2008 Archives

Earlier this week, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) released a brief report using IRS data and revealing that the most unequal states in the country also happen to be states that lack the type of progressive tax provisions that could reduce this inequality and raise badly needed revenue. The most unequal states either don’t have a personal income tax or have one in need of improvement.  Consequently, these states are left with tax systems that, on the whole, are unsustainable, inadequate, and unfair over the long-run.

The IRS data show that, in 2006, ten states -- Wyoming, New York, Nevada, Connecticut, Florida, the District of Columbia, California, Massachusetts, Texas, and Illinois -- have greater concentrations of reported income among their very wealthiest residents than the country as a whole.  Yet, the tax systems in these states generally ignore that very important reality. Of those ten states, four lack a broad-based personal income tax and three either impose a single, flat rate personal income tax or have a rate structure that all but functions in that manner. Three do use a graduated rate structure, but of these, two have cut income taxes for their most affluent residents substantially over the past two decades.

Given this mismatch, it should not be too surprising that over half of these states face severe or chronic budget shortfalls.  After all, the lack of an income tax, the lack of a graduated rate structure, or moves to make the income tax less progressive all mean that a state’s revenue system will not completely reflect the concentration of income among the very wealthy and therefore will not yield as much revenue.

Case in point:  New York.  As the Fiscal Policy Institute observes, over the last 30 years, the state has reduced its top income tax rate by more than 50 percent. Most recently, in 2005, it allowed to lapse a temporary top rate of 7 percent on taxpayers with incomes above $500,000 per year.  Today, the state must confront a budget deficit of more than $6 billion for the coming year and more than $20 billion over the next three.  New York residents seem to understand the disconnect between the enormous disparities of wealth in their state -- where the richest 1 percent of taxpayers account for 28.7 percent of reported income -- and the state’s fiscal woes.  A poll released this week shows that nearly 4 out of 5 people surveyed support increasing the state’s income tax for millionaires.  Hopefully, Governor David Paterson is listening.  As it stands, he’d rather cap property taxes than ensure that millionaires pay taxes in accordance with their inordinate share of New York’s economic resources.