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Revenue stability has been an important policy objective for state government administrators. This study explores whether the effect of revenue diversification on revenue volatility varies in terms of the instability of a state’s economic base. To empirically answer the question, an econometric model that explores a series of factors that could affect revenue stability is estimated using panel data on 47 state governments during the years 1986-2004. The findings indicate that revenue diversification reduces revenue instability for states that are economically stable. However, the revenue-stabilizing effect of diversification diminishes as the economic instability of a state increases. Although revenue diversification has been advocated as a desirable practice for sub-national governments, this study indicates that the benefits of revenue diversification are not always clear and its practice should be moderated by the conditions of a state’s economic base.

The relationship between the local option sales tax (LOST) and property taxes and own source revenue is not well documented in the literature. This may be due in part to the aggregated nature of the data, which fails to capture different motivations for adoption of LOSTs. Using county-level data from 35 states, this study finds that LOSTs increase own source revenue and in some circumstances decrease property tax burdens. The primary contribution of this research is that it uses a policy variable, the LOST rate, to distinguish between the two types of counties that use their LOST revenues differently. This research represents the first step in bridging the gap between the LOST literature and the tax mix choice literature.

This paper examines how voters' initiatives used in 24 states affect state budget balance. The author first uses a qualitative approach to investigate the extent to which ballot initiatives are used and identifies the initiatives that have had significant impacts on state revenues and expenditures. The review shows that the impact of initiatives differs from a state to state. The heavy initiative user states have experienced substantial impact on their budgets. Second, as their impact on state budget is particularly significant during economic downturn, a linear regression analysis is performed to examine the relationship between the use of initiatives and state budget balance measured in terms of the state budget gap as percentage of FY 2010 general fund. The regression analysis shows that the number of expenditure-induced initiatives have a statistically significant effect on state budget gap, while revenue-restrained measures (e.g. number of tax-limiting measures and the use of super majority or popular vote to approve tax increase) only marginally affect the FY 2010 budget gap.

This paper's purpose is to investigate the claim that capital taxes imposed by a subnational government reduce the economic competitiveness of the geographic area in which these taxes are imposed.

A two‐region, four‐good, three‐factor computational general equilibrium model of the USA is constructed. Simulations are performed to represent US state governments replacing wage taxes with capital taxes.

Household utilities rose when wage taxes were replaced by capital taxes, contradicting the conventional wisdom that capital taxes are harmful to a region's residents.

As with all computational economic models, there are simplifications in this paper's model that abstract from reality and may limit the applicability of model results to the real world.

Subnational governments need not shy away from capital taxes when funding government programs.

This paper contributes to the investigation of subnational tax incidence.

The International Fuel Tax Agreement (IFTA) was established to reduce the complexities of reporting, allocating, and collecting diesel fuel taxes from interstate commercial carriers operating in multiple jurisdictions. This paper examines IFTA’s effectiveness as a multistate tax administration model from the perspective of the states. We identify three criteria of effectiveness and use a survey of IFTA officials in the member states and provinces as well as additional data provided by IFTA, Inc to assess IFTA’s effectiveness. We conclude that (1) IFTA promotes inter-jurisdictional cooperation and revenue transfers; (2) carriers do not locate disproportionately in low tax jurisdictions; and (3) IFTA’s audit system, which relies on carrier record-keeping, may not be effectively preventing tax evasion.

Small businesses play a vital role in job creation and economic growth, and previous studies have noted that higher state tax rates may reduce entrepreneurial activity, growth, and hiring. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

In this paper, the authors use a 1989-2005 panel of state-level data to explore the effects of state income tax reciprocity agreements on several measures of small business activity. Since a reciprocity agreement exempts non-resident income from a state's personal income tax base, it has the potential to reduce barriers to entrepreneurial activity and lower tax compliance costs.

The results indicate that reciprocity agreements appear to have reduced the tax-rate sensitivity of entrepreneurial activity, which may lead to more small business and entrepreneurial activity in states with more active agreements, other factors constant. This suggests that personal income tax reciprocity agreements may be a credible policy tool to expand small business activity.

In this study, the paper sets out to determine if small business and entrepreneurial activity is greater in states that have reciprocity agreements and if such activity is dependent on the number of active agreements in place. Given recent nationwide efforts to ease compliance costs for business through other initiatives such as the Telecommuter Tax Fairness Act and the Streamlined Sales Tax Agreement, this study is the first to quantify how decreasing tax compliance and eliminating barriers to labor mobility affects small business activity. The results therefore have the potential to help shape debates in many states today.

The paper offers a new view of the role of state based on recognition of the economic ability of the state as a separate factor of production. Recognizing the state’s economic ability is as a fifth factor of production and correspondingly gives indirect taxes the status of factor income as state profit. Direct taxes play two roles: they fund expenditure that is necessary for the production of public goods and at the same time they are in effect the latter’s price. If we were to apply the mechanism of producing and purchasing private goods to public goods, direct taxes would be replaced by the state loans that are non‐repayable, but yield interest, or by irretrievable loans with computed interest. In this case, which is illustrated by the budgetary equations in the model of an economy “without taxes”, indirect taxes become analogous to state profit and direct taxes are replaced by irretrievable loans with computed interest.

Local governments in the U.S. rely less on the property tax than they have historically. This long-term trend has been accompanied by important shifts in the composition of local revenues. While the property tax still serves as one primary source of local government revenue, increasingly other sources are used to pay for local government. This paper first examines that trend, the forces behind it, and its regional impact. We then explore trends in three central states - - Iowa, Nebraska, and Arkansas -- that have experienced substantial revenue shifts in recent years. A concluding section discusses the options for the future.

The loss in sales tax revenue from nontaxable remote sales erodes a state’s ability to fund essential programs. Taxable goods sold via the Internet in 1999 created a loss to state and local governments of $525 million in sales tax revenue. This study examines the effects of five variables on a state’s willingness to participate voluntarily in the Streamlined Sales Tax Project (SSTP). Three hypotheses are supported: 1) the higher the grade on the Business Vitality score, the more likely elected officials will be influenced by the private sector and state economic development personnel not to participate in the SSTP; 2) the higher the index of innovation capacity, the more likely elected officials will be influenced by businesses not to participate; and 3) the greater the reliance on sales tax, the more likely a state will participate.

This paper examines the state corporate tax implications of abnormal transfer-pricing by U.S. companies involved in international trade. The state corporate tax cost of improperly priced imports and exports is estimated through analysis of every import and export transaction for the years 2005 through 2009 using the interquartile range methodology provided in regulations to Internal Revenue Code Section 482. Calculation of the interquartile range using the entire population of international transactions addresses interpretive issues related to abnormal prices that occur with the smaller samples normally used in such analyses. A policy recommendation is made for improving tax compliance through more rigorous state involvement in transfer pricing enforcement and greater formal collaboration with the Internal Revenue Service with respect to transfer pricing.