Research by Author & Topic

Publications by Kim Rueben on Tax Policy

For the past 11 years, a growing number of states have held sales tax holidays, during which they exempt certain items from state - and often local - sales tax for a few days. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have scheduled 25 tax holidays in 2008, most of which occurred in August. Holidays most frequently exempt clothing and school supplies, but some exempt computers, energy-efficient appliances, or hurricane preparedness items..

State and local revenues have been relatively stable over the last 30 years, growing from 13.5 percent of GDP in 1972 to 16.3 percent in 2005. However, as shown in the table, the composition of revenues has changed, with property taxes declining from 25.6 percent of revenues to only 16.6 percent. Much of this decline occurred in the 1970s.

California's health care reform effort may have been one of the first casualties of the national economic downturn. Yet the conditions that gave rise to the initiative did not disappear when the plan failed, and other states are pushing ahead with proposals to expand health coverage. So it remains useful to reflect on the California experience. In particular, it will be helpful to understand the proposed funding sources, how they would have interacted with California's revenue system, and what alternative funding streams might have withstood the politics of reform. In this policy brief, we analyze the options for financing expanded health insurance coverage in California and offer our own preferred solution in light of the state's fiscal and political constraints.

This article summarizes a March 2007 TPC-Northwestern conference examining state and local finances. Reprinted from Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Land Lines October 2007 issue.

When the Speaker and other leaders of Florida's House of Representatives released their plan to roll back property taxes and place a tight growth limit on state and local revenues, they included a report in their release by the firm Arduin, Laffer and Moore that claims lower taxes will lead to higher economic growth. We examine and point out the flaws in this analysis and show the authors' fundamental result is due to how they constructed their data and an elementary statistical mistake.

In 1997 Congress enacted a number of tax benefits directed toward helping middle- and upper-middle income groups meet rising college costs. This shift in goals and strategies raises concerns about the fairness and effectiveness of the evolving federal approach to higher education. This policy brief analyzes who benefits from the major direct spending program, Pell grants, and the three tax subsidies that most closely resemble grants, the Hope and Lifetime Learning credits and the deduction for tuition and fees. In addition, the brief assesses the potential impacts of these direct spending and tax programs on the affordability of college and the college-going rates of potential students.

States and their local governments vary both in their needs to provide basic public services, and in their abilities to raise revenues to pay for those services. This study summarizes the Representative Revenue System (RRS) and the Representative Expenditure System (RES) frameworks and quantifies these disparities across states by comparing each state's revenue capacity, revenue effort, and necessary expenditures to the average capacity, effort, and need in states across the country.

States and their local governments vary both in their needs to provide basic public services, and in their abilities to raise revenues to pay for those services. This study uses the Representative Revenue System (RRS) and the Representative Expenditure System (RES) frameworks to quantify these disparities across states by comparing each state's revenue capacity, revenue effort, and necessary expenditures to the average capacity, effort, and need in states across the country.

States and their local governments vary both in their needs to provide basic public services, and in their abilities to raise revenues to pay for those services. A forthcoming joint study by the Tax Policy Center and the New England Policy Center at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, uses the Representative Revenue System (RRS) and the Representative Expenditure System (RES) frameworks to quantify these disparities across states by comparing each state’s revenue capacity, revenue effort, and necessary expenditures to the average capacity, effort, and need in states across the country.

This paper explores the key features of four essential federal-state-local programs that have offered supports to low-income families and individuals in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina -- housing, unemployment compensation, Medicaid, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. It argues that the complexity of their structures and limited scale have inhibited their ability to respond effectively and quickly to the needs created by Hurricane Katrina. It recommends that national policymakers develop a set of disaster relief mechanisms better suited to address the large-scale cross-jurisdictional migration, diminished state fiscal capacity, increased demand for assistance, and other challenges that major disasters present.