In the United States, taxes are the single most expensive ingredient in beer. The tax burden accounts for more of the final price of beer than labor and materials combined—the many different layers of applicable taxes combining to total as much as 40.8 percent of the retail price.
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Illinois plans to impose a complicated, legally fraught new social media tax based on a few pages of confused, contradictory, and almost laughably incomplete legislative text embedded in the new budget.
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While a proposal to phase down property taxes on the primary residences of Florida homeowners may grab headlines, it risks severely undermining the competitiveness of Florida’s overall tax structure and leaving the state worse off.
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Policies that increase the tax burden on high earners makes states less competitive, increase revenue volatility, discourage investment, and risk accelerating outmigration of talent and capital. Many top-earners are already leaving high-tax states for Florida, North Carolina, and other low-tax jurisdictions.
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Fourteen countries in Europe—Belgium, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Poland, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom—currently levy a type of financial transaction tax.
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Voters in California this fall will have to determine whether the state will institute a billionaire tax. Advocates of this proposal have been pushing for these kinds of money grabs for decades—and their arguments often run the same. The base is narrow, the lifespan is limited, the cause is sympathetic.
Publicly held debt is projected to rise to a new record high of 106 percent of GDP within the next four years and continue to rise to 120 percent by 2036 and 175 percent by 2056.
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Currently, the European Commission has plans to generate more tax revenue to fund the forthcoming MFF, the long-term budget running from 2028 to 2034. But the truth is, without serious reform, the EU isn’t ready for new taxation.
If approved by voters, the wealth tax will face a flurry of serious legal challenges—some to its overall constitutionality, and some regarding who can be taxed and to what degree if the tax survives broader legal scrutiny.
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Oregon’s Extended Producer Responsibility program to incentivize recycling does so with a complicated and unprincipled series of regulations, including confidentially determined tax rates on various materials derived from a revenue goal.
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Alcohol taxes in Illinois have been broken for decades, and the state is now considering a “fix” that moves policy in the wrong direction.
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The significant disparity in tax rates across states underscores the complex tax and regulatory environment governing distilled spirits.
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Debates over tax fairness and anti-avoidance rules have dominated European tax policy circles for over a decade. However, as geoeconomic pressures increase around the world, policymakers are looking for ways to boost European competitiveness and economic growth.
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Military action around the Strait of Hormuz has increased global oil prices. In response, policymakers around the world have put forward proposals targeting oil and gas producers who are seeing profits increase in the short run from the spike in prices.
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A well-designed tax trigger can be a highly valuable tool for lawmakers seeking both tax reform and revenue stability. States should embrace established baselines adjusted for inflation, use collections instead of projections as benchmarks, and prioritize contributions to their rainy day funds.
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Revenue-neutral proposals, like many things in politics, have become a relic of the past.
During a recent special session called by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R), Arkansas policymakers cut the state’s top individual and corporate income tax rates, continuing Arkansas’s years-long tax reform streak and making the Razorback State one of five states to cut income taxes so far in 2026.
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Carryover provisions help businesses “smooth” their risk and income, making the tax code more neutral across investments and over time.
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In response to surging gas prices, President Trump and several lawmakers have proposed suspending the federal gas tax via a gas tax holiday. Gas tax holidays have appeal across the political aisle, but suspending the federal gas tax is a uniquely ill-suited policy for addressing rising prices.
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Academic research has continually found that making alternative nicotine products to cigarettes more expensive results in fewer smokers switching to less harmful products.
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