Property Tax Relief on the Ballot: Three Approaches, One Clear Winner
This November, states across the country are asking voters to consider changes to their state constitutions to address the burden of rising property taxes.
7 min read
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In Wyoming, Are Two Homestead Exemptions Enough?
No one enjoys paying taxes, but the property tax serves an important purpose, and Wyoming has already implemented significant property tax relief. Proposition 1 would undercut local finances to a degree that would likely force reliance on worse taxes (local or state) and prompt spending cuts that reduce homeowners’ property values.
5 min read
Amendment 3: A Restructuring of Florida’s Local Tax Base
Florida has long maintained one of the nation’s most competitive state tax codes, but a fundamental change proposed by Amendment 3 could undermine that competitiveness.
30 min read
The California Billionaire Tax’s Ever-Shifting Goalposts
Wealth taxes have been a failure everywhere they’ve been tried, which may be why advocates for the California amendment are saying this is a new frontier. But the countries that have tried this gamble know the frontier well, and they’ve left it in the dust.
Washington Voters Will Decide Whether to Keep or Reject an Income Tax on High Earners
Washington’s new income tax on high earners doesn’t take effect until 2028, but it is already generating a lot of activity. A measure on the ballot this November, Initiative 645, would reverse the legislature’s decision, preventing the new tax from taking effect.
5 min read
The 2026 Ballot Measures Shaping State Taxes
What happens when voters decide tax policy directly? This November, roughly 40 tax measures are on the ballot across 17 states. Some states want higher taxes on top earners, others want to write low rates into their constitutions, and Missouri voters will decide whether to start a fund that could one day replace every state tax.
Colorado’s Election Day Choice on Income Taxes
On Election Day, Coloradans will get to decide on two competing measures on income taxes: an initiated statute that would cap income taxes at the current 4.4 percent rate; and a constitutional amendment that would authorize a graduated-rate individual and corporate income tax, paired with an initiated statute setting new rates, with a top rate of 8.4 percent.
6 min read
California’s Wealth Tax Explained (And Why It Might Fail)
California’s billionaire tax is on the ballot this November, and it raises more questions than answers. From lost government revenue to legal battles that could drag on for years, what would this first-in-the-nation wealth tax actually do?
Constitutional Flaws of California’s Proposed Wealth Tax
The California Billionaire Tax Act (Proposition 40), which imposes a one-time 5 percent tax on billionaires’ net worth, is vulnerable to numerous constitutional challenges, any of which could invalidate the tax in whole or in part.
28 min read
Why Wealth Taxes Always Fail
Though they are often framed as affecting only the richest households, the economic effects of wealth taxes extend much further by reducing capital formation, discouraging entrepreneurship, curtailing wage and employment growth, and ultimately weakening the overall economy.
Why Billionaires Are Still Leaving California
The California Billionaire Tax Act’s residency provisions are exceptionally vulnerable to legal challenge. Even if the tax passes and survives challenges to its broader constitutionality, billionaires who leave California sometime in 2026 have good reason to believe they can escape some or all of the tax.
If Amendment 5 Passes, Lawmakers Need a Zephyr, not a Gale, to Sail Missouri to Tax Competitiveness
If voters approve Amendment 5 on the primary election ballot this August, Missouri policymakers must pass legislation to gradually phase out the state’s income tax while choosing how to pay for this goal.
Targeting High Earners is Misguided and Will Worsen States’ Fiscal Positions
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.
9 min read
Mid-Year Movers and the California Wealth Tax
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.
24 min read
Michigan’s Tax Gamble Could Risk Its Competitive Edge
Michigan voters may soon consider a dramatic change to the state’s income tax.
Progressive Income Tax on the Ballot in Michigan?
If Michiganders are interested in increasing the state’s spending on education or other priorities—and believe that current revenues are insufficient to support such an increase—there are several ways to do so without significantly affecting residents’ incentives to live and work in Michigan.
4 min read
Momentum Slows for State Drug Legalization Policies via 2024 State Ballot Initiatives
With the significant potential for state revenues, and the prior political success of arguments that legalization can shift consumers to safer legal markets, it seems likely that states will continue to see legislation and ballot initiatives to legalize marijuana at the state level—even states that failed to do so this election.
5 min read
Oregon Measure 118 Is an $8 Billion Tax Increase That Raids $2 Billion from the State Budget
Due to the peculiar design of the proposed tax increase, it’s true: the largest tax increase Oregon has ever seen would create a substantial budget shortfall.
8 min read
South Dakota’s Initiated Measure 28 Undermines Sales Tax Rate Reductions
Especially for a state that relies so heavily on the sales tax as a source of revenue—and where most people want to keep it that way—a broad base and a low rate is crucial.
5 min read
Georgia Amendment 1 Threatens the State’s Housing Market
Georgia should focus on policies that restrict the overall growth of property taxes, not policies that functionally freeze property taxes for current owners by shifting costs onto new owners and into the sales tax.
6 min read