Jared Walczak is a Senior Fellow at the Tax Foundation, where he spent five years as Vice President of State Projects, and president of Walczak Policy Consulting.
Jared has written or co-written tax reform guides for more than a dozen states and has served as the principal author of the Tax Foundation’s State Tax Competitiveness Index and Location Matters. He is also a regular on the conference circuit and has testified before legislatures in 35 states. His efforts have been instrumental in securing tax reform in many states, including sweeping reforms in Iowa and Louisiana, along with substantive reforms in Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming, among others.
Jared also serves as a member of the faculty of the Institute for Professionals in Taxation, sits on the state tax advisory board of the Institute for State Policy Leaders, and contributes to Tax Notes State magazine. He is the author of the “SALT Road” Substack, a free newsletter on state and local tax policy.
As the NYSE prepares to conduct a test of their server capacity elsewhere, New Jersey lawmakers may be forced to rethink the viability of their financial transaction tax proposal.
4 min read
States can tax your income where you live and where you work—but a growing number of states may also seek to tax your income even if you neither live nor work there, an aggressive posture that becomes increasingly consequential as more Americans work remotely both during and potentially after the COVID-19 pandemic.
15 min read
Today marked the release of second-quarter GDP data and provides a new glimpse into early changes in state and local revenues and spending. All told, second-quarter state and local tax receipts came in about 3.8 percent lower than they did in the same quarter a year ago. Income and sales taxes fell considerably while property and excise tax collections remained stable.
3 min read
Seeking new sources of funding, New York and New Jersey—two states at the heart of global financial markets—are considering financial transaction taxes.
5 min read
As U.S. businesses struggle to recover from the economic downturn, Congress and the White House continue to debate a phase four relief package, which could include anything from incentives for domestic travel and a payroll tax cut to more fundamental reforms like enacting permanent full cost recovery.
2 min read
Revised state revenue forecasts show a significant decline in projected revenues for both the recently concluded FY 2020 and current FY 2021, though the picture they paint is considerably less dire than many feared a few months ago.
13 min read
Property tax burdens in Connecticut continue to increase even as property values decline, whereas other states—including neighboring Massachusetts and New York—have managed to keep the growth of property tax burdens in check.
42 min read
Seattle’s city council are again gearing up for an effort to increase taxes on the city’s largest employers, intended to generate revenue for cash assistance to low-income households impacted by the COVID-19 crisis, among other reasons.
4 min read
Despite a balanced budget and and revenue shortfalls arising from the coronavirus crisis, the D.C. Council will consider proposals to raise income taxes to fund newly proposed spending projects.
5 min read
Taxes on digital services, digital advertising, and the sale or utilization of consumer data, which were already emerging before the #coronavirus crisis, look increasingly attractive to cash-strapped states and localities.
7 min read
With California’s unemployment rate approaching 25 percent, it is somewhat surprising to find policymakers contemplating a literal tax on jobs.
3 min read
While other states are starting to think about the recovery, California is contemplating tax policies that would stand in the way of economic expansion once the health crisis abates. California’s shortfall is all too real, but tax policies which impede recovery are a hindrance, not a help.
5 min read
The SMART Act, sponsored by Senators Bob Menendez and Bill Cassidy and Rep. Mikie Sherrill, would provide $500 billion in flexible funding to state and local governments.
6 min read
The HEROES Act, proposed by House Democrats as a next round of fiscal relief during the coronavirus outbreak, contains about $1.08 trillion in aid to states and localities. That would bring the pandemic total to $1.63 trillion—an amount so large that it might overwhelm their ability to spend it and could reward fiscal irresponsibility.
8 min read
The HEROES Act would provide more than $1 trillion to state and local governments. Here’s how funding would be distributed and provisional estimates of how much aid each state would receive.
5 min read
The COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying economic downturn will wreak havoc on state and local tax revenues, with projections of a 15-20 percent decline in state revenues. Our new report provides a framework for how to design an effective state and local relief package.
35 min read
Gov. Hogan vetoed a proposed first-in-the-nation digital advertising tax that would have imposed rates of up to 10 percent on digital advertising served to Marylanders.
3 min read
What could the next phase of relief look like and what role does tax policy play in ensuring the U.S. and countries around the world make a strong economic recovery?
1 min read
The U.S. Department of the Treasury recently issued new guidance on allowable expenses using the $150 billion in state aid provided under the CARES Act, a point on which there has been considerable confusion.
3 min read