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Soda sales in Philadelphia have also declined since the tax went into effect at the beginning of 2017, threatening the long-run sustainability of the tax. According to some local distributors and retailers, sales have declined by nearly 50 percent.[13] This is likely primarily due to higher prices, which discourage purchasing beverages in the city. Some Philadelphia taxpayers took to Twitter as the tax took effect, noting their plans to shop for groceries outside the city.[14] This kind of tax avoidance is only feasible for consumers with means of transportation, making the tax even more regressive. Purchases of beer are also now less expensive than nonalcoholic beverages subject to the tax in the city.[15] Empirical evidence from a 2012 journal article suggests that soda taxes can push consumers to alcohol, meaning it is likely the case that consumers are switching to alcoholic beverages as a result of the tax. The paper, aptly titled From Coke to Coors, further shows that switching from soda to beer increases total caloric intake, even as soda taxes are generally aimed at caloric reduction.

State and local governments collected an average of $1,070 per person from individual income taxes, but the collection amount varies widely from state to state. New York collected $2,699 per person, the most of any state. Connecticut comes in second at $2,162, with Maryland rounding out the top three at $2,097 collected per person. Arizona collected $515 per person, the least among states with broad-based taxes on wage income. Other states with relatively low collections include Mississippi ($557), Louisiana ($592), and New Mexico ($622). New Hampshire and Tennessee, which tax only interest and dividend income, collected $70 and $37 per person respectively. The seven states that don’t collect individual income taxes predictably reported $0 in per person collections.

There are serious reasons to consider cutting the U.S. corporate income tax. However, many of the best arguments for cutting the corporate income tax apply most strongly to permanent cuts, not temporary ones. A temporary corporate income tax cut is less likely to promote growth and less likely to benefit workers than a permanent corporate income tax cut. A tax reform effort should hope to boost incomes for all, and a corporate income tax cut could be a means to do it. However, a large but short-lived reduction in corporate income taxes may be largely a windfall for investors, pension funds, and retirement accounts, with precious few broader benefits to the economy at large.

Corporate income taxes are one of the smallest sources of state and local tax revenue. On average, only 3.7 percent of state and local tax revenues came from corporate income taxes in fiscal year 2014 (the most recent data available).

Some, however, mistake the corporate income tax as the entirety of a business’s tax burden. In reality, businesses pay many types of taxes (such as sales tax, property tax, excise taxes, and more) and the corporate income tax makes up only 9.5 percent of total business taxes.

The share of revenue from corporate income taxes will decline as more businesses organize as pass-throughs (S-corps, partnerships, sole proprietorships, etc.), which “pass their income through” to their individual tax returns and therefore are liable under the individual income tax code.

. . . the Blueprint provides a net $1.6 trillion tax cut for American businesses over the next decade, as scored on a static basis. Thus, businesses in every state will benefit substantially.. . California would gain a business net tax relief of $205 billion. . . According to the TAG model, even accounting for the border adjustment, the Blueprint would boost the long-term level of GDP by 9.1 percent, investment by 28 percent, after-tax incomes by an average of 8.7 percent, and create 1.7 million new jobs.

The Blueprint would lead to the creation of roughly 1.7 million new jobs and boost the after-tax incomes of the median household by nearly $5,000. . . California would gain 191,000+ jobs and an estimated gain in after-tax income for median households of $5,536.

Individual income taxes are a major source of state revenue (36 percent of collections).Their prominence is increased by the fact that taxpayers file their individual income taxes directly, unlike the sales tax, for example. For many, the personal income tax is practically synonymous with their own tax burdens.

Okay, maybe that’s not the biggest draw today. Perhaps that honor belongs to Oregon Measure 97, or Maine Question 2, or Louisiana Amendment 3, or California Proposition 55. But just on the off chance that these aren’t the headlines on the election coverage you’re following, here’s a quick guide to some of the major tax-related ballot issues voters will see today

On the issue of taxation alone, voters must decide whether to impose a first-in-the-nation carbon tax (Washington), adopt a new income and payroll tax to fund a state public option health care system (Colorado), levy a high-rate gross receipts tax (Oregon), extend temporary income tax increases (California), impose a new high-income surcharge (Maine), legalize and tax marijuana (five states), and hike cigarette taxes (four states), just to name a few of the tax changes on ballots across the country.

The Tax Foundation’s State Business Tax Climate Index enables business leaders, government policymakers, and taxpayers to gauge how their states’ tax systems compare. While there are many ways to show how much is collected in taxes by state governments, the Index is designed to show how well states structure their tax systems, and provides a roadmap for improvement.

The studies, published by The American Review of Public Administration and American Politics Research, examine why states adopted or terminated film tax incentive programs and measures the effects of film tax credits in 40 states on employment and wages from 1998 to 2013. The authors found that sales tax waivers had no measurable effects; transferable tax credits had a small, sustained effect on employment but no effect on wages; and the most generous form of tax credit, refundable credits, had no employment effect and a temporary wage effect. Spending more on incentives had no lasting impact.

The reliance on property taxes is not the only thing that varies across the country. The amount that Americans pay in property taxes differs widely. The map below shows the median property taxes paid in each county in the United States.

State gas taxes vary widely. The highest state gas tax is assessed in Pennsylvania, at 50.4 cents per gallon, with Washington State (44.5 cpg) and New York (42.64 cpg) following closely behind. Alaska drivers pay the lowest rate in the country at 12.25 cents per gallon. These figures do not include the 18.4 cpg federal gas tax.

How do taxes in your state compare nationally? This convenient resource compares the 50 states on many different measures of taxing and spending, including individual and corporate income tax rates, business tax climates, excise taxes, tax burdens and state spending.

In 2012, the top 50 percent of all taxpayers (69.2 million filers) paid 97.2 percent of all income taxes while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 2.8 percent.