State and Local Sales Tax Rates, 2025
Retail sales taxes are an essential part of most states’ revenue toolkits, responsible for 24 percent of combined state and local tax collections.
15 min readRetail sales taxes are an essential part of most states’ revenue toolkits, responsible for 24 percent of combined state and local tax collections.
15 min readDespite stark competitiveness differences, both New Jersey and Utah share a common goal this legislative session: reforming economic nexus rules that require out-of-state sellers and marketplace facilitators to collect and remit state sales taxes.
4 min readThirty-nine states will begin 2025 with notable tax changes, including nine states cutting individual income taxes. Recent years have seen a wave of significant tax reforms, and the changes scheduled for 2025 show that these efforts have not let up.
25 min readLawmakers will enter the 2025 fiscal legislative session with an opportunity to build on the successes of the November special session. Efforts should include addressing the outstanding issues within the corporate and sales tax codes that currently hold the state back.
7 min readThe State Tax Competitiveness Index enables policymakers, taxpayers, and business leaders to gauge how their states’ tax systems compare. While there are many ways to show how much state governments collect in taxes, the Index evaluates how well states structure their tax systems and provides a road map for improvement.
115 min readToday marks 55 years since two students sent the first message across the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) between computers at four universities, which would later become the internet we enjoy today.
5 min readWhile there are many factors that affect a country’s economic performance, taxes play an important role. A well-structured tax code is easy for taxpayers to comply with and can promote economic development while raising sufficient revenue for a government’s priorities.
92 min readEspecially 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 readGeorgia 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 readSports stadium subsidies are salient political gimmicks designed to appear as if politicians are providing tangible benefits to taxpayers. The empirical evidence shows repeatedly that stadium subsidies fail to generate new tax revenue and new jobs or attract new businesses.
6 min readUnder the tax created by Measure 118, Oregon businesses would be significantly disadvantaged against their larger and out-of-state rivals.
6 min readOregon’s Measure 118, though presented as a tax on big business, would function as an aggressive sales tax on consumers.
7 min readTaxes are on the ballot this November—not just in the sense that candidates at all levels are offering their visions for tax policy, but also in the literal sense that voters in some states will get to decide important questions about how their states raise revenue.
9 min readUtah is the only state to earmark the entirety of one of its major taxes, but a measure on the ballot this November might change that.
4 min readThe sales tax is the second-largest source of state tax revenue and an important source of local tax revenue, but decades of base erosion threaten the tax’s share of overall revenue and have prompted years of countervailing rate increases.
72 min readWorld War II shaped many aspects of the modern world, including the US tax code. But the dramatic changes to our system that military mobilization required didn’t subside when the fighting finished; they’ve persisted to today.
4 min readStates would do better to broaden the sales tax base to include currently exempt classes of final consumption than to impose disproportionate taxes on prepared foods.
6 min readWhile many factors influence business location and investment decisions, sales taxes are something within policymakers’ control that can have immediate impacts—especially as a large number of major cities have combined rates of 9 percent or more.
6 min readThe government provides various services at the federal, state, and local levels. How are they paid for? Taxes.
Next year, West Virginians will see an income tax cut thanks to revenue triggers in a 2023 law. The Mountain State joins 14 other states that have cut income taxes this year.
4 min read