The Heartland Institute

Citizens are departing high tax US states for low tax rates. These effects are particularly strong among bordering states. Each positive 1 percentage point tax burden differential between states decreases the ratio of income migration into the high tax state by 6.78 percent in a given year. This paper highlights the states ...

The power to tax is the most ubiquitous of all government powers. It reaches directly or indirectly to all classes of people, all industries, all elements of society. Taxes always place at least some burdens on business, individuals, and the economy. They are a necessary evil. However, citizens should tolerate only those taxes ...

At the end of 2009, Congress froze up and let the estate tax expire, but if Congress is similarly paralyzed at the end of 2010, it won't be taxes that expire. It will be tax cuts. All the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 are scheduled to revert to 2001 law on January 1, 2011, because they were enacted on a 10-year ...

With the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts scheduled to expire at the end of this year, President Obama and Congress face the prospect of overseeing a historic tax increase. If nothing is done, the $1,000 child tax credit will fall to $500, and the marriage penalty will be re-imposed. Low-income families will see their income tax rate ...

Introduction The debate over taxing high-income families to fund the expansion of health care coverage in America has renewed the broader question of government's role in redistributing income through tax and spending policies. What is missing from this debate is some hard numbers on how much current tax and spending policies ...

Guest-blogging on the liberal Democracy for New Mexico Web site, New Mexico State Sen. Linda Lopez wrote that her solution to the state s budget problems is to " return to pre-2004 tax rates to fix the budget shortfall." A much better solution is available. Rather than raise taxes back up to pre-2004 levels, the legislature ...

When it comes to tax policy, the emphasis in Washington, DC, has once again turned to how to split up the economic pie rather than the effect of tax policy on the size of the pie. During the 2008 Presidential campaign, the focus on equity took the form of rolling back the Bush tax cuts increasing the top tax rates for ...

The Internal Revenue Service has released new data on individual income taxes, reporting on calendar year 2007, a year in which the economy remained healthy and continued to grow. Individual income tax collections increased substantially that year, while the overall average effective tax rate remained about the same. In 2007, the ...

As Illinois lawmakers return to Springfield, Gov. Quinn continues to push the false notion that an income tax increase is essential to shore up the state's budget. The " doomsday" budget Quinn laid out as being necessary unless a 50 percent income tax is passed is pure political theater. The tax increase is unnecessary and ...

Lawmakers in at least eight states are considering raising income tax rates on a small percentage of top income-earners in order to shore up their state budgets. But this is a risky way of raising revenue, especially during a recession. Relying on such a small percentage of the population creates larger boom-and-bust periods ...

A new tax rate of 6.25 percent for Maryland tax filers who report $1million or more of income comes on top of income taxes imposed by the state's 23 counties and the City of Baltimore. The local tax rates vary from 1.25 percent to 3.20 percent. The highest state income tax bracket in the nation is 9.9 percent, in ...

Maryland has become the nation's first state to impose a tax bracket specifically for filers who earn more than $1 million a year. Supporters say the move will bring in more revenue, while opponents say it will do the opposite. "I call it the 'Get Out of Maryland Tax Act,'" said economist Stephen Moore, a Wall Street ...

For years, taxpayer advocacy groups have been sounding the alarm about serious spending problems facing the nation and the lack of attention elected officials are paying to this growing fiscal disaster. Now come projections out of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on what further delay means to taxpayers and the economy ...

Amid growing concerns about U.S. economic competitiveness, policymakers are awakening to the fact that America has one of the world's most inefficient corporate income taxes. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-New York), chairman of the U.S. House tax committee, has proposed reducing the federal corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 30 ...

Federal income tax refunds for millions of taxpayers could be delayed this year, but higher income tax bills for millions of taxpayers will be avoided as a result of Congressional action to "patch" the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). Nearly 20 million taxpayers will avoid tax bills that could have averaged $2,000 higher. Still ...

Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI), a member of the House Budget Committee, has weighed in on the debate to end the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). Ryan's bill is called the Taxpayer Choice Act, H.R. 3818. It was introduced in the House on October 10, 2007. The good news in Ryan's bill, unlike the proposal of Rep. Charlie ...

A provision of the 2006 legislation addressing unintended tax penalties on incentive stock options (ISOs) under the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) is proving counterproductive, because it limits overpayment refunds to employees with incomes above AMT deduction phase-out amounts. The phase-out rule forces some of America's most ...

Some Democrats are floating a proposal developed by the Tax Policy Center, a joint undertaking of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, to repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) and replace it with a 4 percentage point surtax on adjusted gross incomes in excess of $100,000 for singles and $200,000 for couples. The ...

More than half the personal income earned in Washington County, Maine comes from government, and only one of Maine's 16 counties has a growing private-sector share of personal income, according to a new report from The Maine Heritage Policy Center. "Maine's Private Sector Share of Personal Income by County," released May ...

Americans who struggled to finish their tax returns in April needed more than a little aspirin and a lot of luck to cope with new filing burdens and increased costs, according to the nonpartisan National Taxpayers Union's (NTU) annual study of tax law complexity trends. Taxpayers using any of the 1040 tax form series spent ...