State Sales Tax Breadth and Reliance, Fiscal Year 2022
An ideal sales tax is imposed on all final consumption, both goods and services, but excludes intermediate transactions to avoid tax pyramiding.
15 min read
Expert
Jared Walczak
Senior Fellow
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.
Latest Work
State and Local Sales Tax Rates, Midyear 2024
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).
8 min read
California Explores New Ways to Tax the Internet
The data extraction mitigation fee is modeled after Maryland’s digital advertising tax, which has been mired in litigation since its inception and is very likely unconstitutional and in conflict with federal law.
6 min read
Portland’s Weirdly High Taxes
Portland residents face some of the country’s highest taxes on just about every class of income. In an era of dramatically increased mobility for individuals and businesses alike, that’s not a recipe for success.
11 min read
Oregon Ballot Measure Would Yield Sky-High Business Tax Rates
The all-in Oregon state and local tax rate on large businesses could exceed 56 percent under a proposed ballot measure that purports to impose only a small tax increase on large businesses.
6 min read
Caitlin Clark’s Other Audience: State Tax Departments
When Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese made their WNBA preseason debuts, basketball fans across the country tuned in. But there’s another audience that also follows along: state revenue officials, who will expect their piece of the pie each time these star athletes—and their teammates—come to town.
3 min read
State Income Taxes and the 2024 NFL Draft Class
Here’s how much NFL players can expect to pay in state and local income taxes—to all relevant states—at multiple salary levels, by team.
7 min read
Can States Afford Their Recent Tax Cuts?
With state tax revenues receding from all-time highs, there’s been a great deal of handwringing about whether states can afford the tax cuts adopted over the past few years. Given that 27 states reduced the rate of a major tax between 2021 and 2023, is there reason for concern?
4 min read
The Shortcomings of Nebraska’s EPIC Option
31 min read
Tangible Personal Property De Minimis Exemptions by State, 2024
Does your state have a small business exemption for machinery and equipment?
3 min read
Proposed “Junk Fee” Rule Would Create Inadvertent Tax Headaches
One particular provision of the Biden administration’s proposal to ban so-called “junk fees” would have unintended consequences.
5 min read
State and Local Sales Tax Rates, 2024
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
Kentucky Sales Tax Modernization: Keeping the Sales Tax on Sales, Not Production
As policymakers continue efforts to improve Kentucky’s tax structure and competitiveness, they should keep in mind that not all offsets are created equal.
59 min read
Governor Youngkin Unveils a New Tax Plan for Virginia
Virginia Governor Youngkin unveiled the contours of a tax reform plan incorporated into his forthcoming budget, which includes three major structural elements: a reduction in the individual income tax rate, a 0.9 percentage point increase in the sales tax rate, and the broadening of the sales tax base to include some “new economy” digital services.
6 min read
Personal Property De Minimis Exemptions Slash Compliance Burdens at Trivial Cost
All policy choices involve trade-offs—but occasionally, the ratio of costs and benefits is shockingly lopsided. Adopting a de minimis exemption for tangible personal property (TPP) taxes is just such a policy: one which massively reduces compliance and administrative burdens at trivial cost.
18 min read
State and Local Tax Collections by State, 2023
Contrary to initial expectations, the pandemic years were good for state and local tax collections, and while the surges of 2021 and 2022 have not continued into calendar year 2023, revenues remain robust in most states and well above pre-pandemic levels even after accounting for inflation.
5 min read
Jeff Bezos’s Move Undercuts Proposed Washington State Wealth Tax
Whether tax savings motivated his move or not, the implications for Washington are very real, and serve to illustrate just how dangerous it can be to design tax systems that rely so overwhelmingly on a very small number of taxpayers choosing to stay put.
3 min read
2024 State Business Tax Climate Index
In recognition of the fact that there are better and worse ways to raise revenue, our Index focuses on how state tax revenue is raised, not how much. The rankings, therefore, reflect how well states structure their tax systems.
111 min read
The Future of Arkansas Tax Reform: Next Steps on the Road Map to Competitiveness
Responsible pro-growth reforms to Arkansas’s tax code can help ensure that the Natural State is indeed a Land of Opportunity.
9 min read
Leave Worldwide Combined Reporting in the ‘80s, Where It Belongs
Given enough time, everything old is new again—including tax ideas best consigned to history. But worldwide combined reporting, which a few states flirted with in the 1980s, is rearing its head again.
6 min read