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 is a regular on the conference circuit and is well known in state capitols. He has written or co-written tax reform guides for more than a dozen 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 serves as a visiting fellow with several other organizations, including the CalTax Foundation, the National Taxpayers Union, the Illinois Policy Institute, the Platte Institute, and the Mackinac Center. He 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.
Congress may have passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), but state lawmakers now face big choices. Most states link their tax codes to the federal system, meaning OBBBA’s provisions—good and bad—are about to ripple across state budgets.
For Congress, work on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is done. But in state capitols, the work has not yet begun. Many of the tax changes in the federal reconciliation act flow through to state tax codes—automatically in some states, and subject to an update in states’ Internal Revenue Code conformity date in others.
39 min read
However states choose to respond to other tax provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, they should conform to the pro-growth provisions, which represent a marked improvement in the corporate tax code.
12 min read
The One Big Beautiful Bill’s changes to the taxation of international income have surprising implications for state codes, yielding tax increases and a revised tax base that, through quirks of state incorporation, bears very little resemblance to the federal base and almost nothing of its purpose.
10 min read
The five states with the highest average combined state and local sales tax rates are Louisiana (10.11 percent), Tennessee (9.61 percent), Arkansas (9.48 percent), Washington (9.47 percent), and Alabama (9.44 percent).
10 min read
The Senate’s version of the OBBB restores the benefit of avoiding the SALT deduction cap with PTETs for all pass-through businesses, while placing new limits on the extent of the workarounds.
6 min read
President’s Trump’s policies would throw high-tax states a life raft as they swim against the tide—before potentially hitting all states with a tariff-induced economic tsunami that could force lawmakers’ hands and reverse recent tax relief.
For owners of pass-through businesses, the reconciliation package (1) raises the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap, (2) denies the benefit of pass-through entity-level taxes that had previously worked around the SALT cap for such pass-through businesses, and (3) increases the Section 199A deduction for qualifying pass-through entities.
4 min read
As the US House hashes out its “One, Big, Beautiful Bill,” statehouse lawmakers are watching closely, given the impact of both its tax and spending provisions on state budgets.
12 min read
As home values have spiked, Florida and other states are weighing elimination of property taxes.
In Washington, Gov. Ferguson (D) will soon have to act on legislation enacting a far more sweeping tax on Washington-based businesses than lawmakers imagined.
7 min read
The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) only succeeds in demonstrating that America has more millionaires than it used to, not that high-tax states are doing well in attracting or retaining them.
7 min read
The proposed changes to federal tax code conformity in Oregon are a good example of a change that could significantly reshape the state’s tax code in the future, despite being framed as temporary technical adjustments.
4 min read
With a wealth tax, property tax increases, and this new payroll tax on the agenda, Washington lawmakers have reason to fear that many employers could be looking for the exits.
5 min read
Maryland’s proposed budget has garnered headlines for many reasons, but another momentous change is flying under the radar: backdoor adoption of potentially mandatory worldwide combined reporting.
6 min read
With such an important change to Iowa’s property tax system, it’s important that lawmakers get the details right.
33 min read
Lawmakers should finish the work they have begun over the past few decades, tackling tax rates and structures to give the state a leg up in an era of enhanced competition.
84 min read
While capping C-SALT has superficial appeal in perceived parity with personal limits, it rests on flawed assumptions about the nature of individual and corporate income taxes.
7 min read
The Trump administration appears to be moving in a “reciprocal” policy direction despite the significant negative economic consequences for American consumers of across-the-board tariffs on goods coming into the US. However, the EU’s VAT system should not be used as a justification for retaliatory tariffs.
6 min read
Retail sales taxes are an essential part of most states’ revenue toolkits, responsible for 32 percent of state tax collections and 13 percent of local tax collections (24 percent of combined collections).
9 min read