Budget & Taxes Legislators Press for Federal Firefighting Funding Change Last month the National Conference of State Legislatures unanimously passed a resolution authorizing the organization to lobby Congress to provide funding for catastrophic...
Budget & Taxes Feds Say NJ Must Repay $32M in Medicaid Claims The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said last month that New Jersey owes the federal government $32.2 million for improper Medicaid reimbursement claims filed for home...
Budget & Taxes Breakthrough on NC Budget North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) and legislative leaders have finally agreed to spend $21.74 billion this fiscal year. The state has been operating without a budget - running on continuing resolutions...
Budget & Taxes States Back Tax Breaks for Military Vets Despite facing a budget shortfall this year, Maryland doubled its income tax exemption for military retirement pay to $10,000. And a budget hole forced Connecticut to raise taxes on its...
Budget & Taxes States Embrace Earned Income Tax Credit As states continue to recover from the Great Recession, several are embracing a tax credit to help bring working families along. This year five states, including California and Massachusetts...
Budget & Taxes Congress Settles On Highway Funding Extension After battling over rival transportation funding bills for a week, with U.S. House Republicans favoring a five-month extension they passed last month and Senate Republicans preferring...
By Marc. T. Finer and William J. Kambas Editors Note: This article is posted on the LexisNexis® Tax Law Newsroom web site by permission of Withers Bergman LLP. All rights reserved. ... State and local income tax issues do not often reach...
Budget & Taxes KS Keeping Some Tax Credits Secret According to Kansas’ Department of Revenue, in 2013 the state granted $622 million in income and privilege tax credits, allowing taxpayers to deduct various qualifying expenses from their...
Budget & Taxes Another Tall Transportation Order For CA When it comes to the issue of transportation, California Gov. Jerry Brown’s (D) main focus - beginning with his first pass through the governor’s office a generation ago - has...
Budget & Taxes Puerto Rican Debt Threat to U.S. Cities, States In an interview with The New York Times last month, Puerto Rico Gov. Alejandro García Padilla said the U.S. commonwealth wasn’t able to pay its roughly $72 billion in...
Budget & Taxes Some Republicans Embracing Tax Hikes After Republicans swept into control of 29 governor’s offices and 25 state legislatures in the 2010 elections, they moved aggressively to cut spending and taxes. The cuts continued the...
Budget & Taxes CA Considering Prop 13 Reform A bill introduced last week in California would overhaul Proposition 13 -- the landmark property tax limit initiative approved by the state’s voters in 1978 -- to allow regular reassessments...
Budget & Taxes New Rules Could Swell States' Unfunded Liabilities According to a report last year from bond-rating company Standard & Poor’s, states have $529.8 billion in unfunded liabilities for health care and other benefits...
Budget & Taxes Gas Tax Hike Coming to CA? Raising prices at the gas pump is a risky proposition in California, where cars have always been king. In fact the state is one of only a few in the nation that haven’t raised gas taxes since the...
Invalidation by the U.S. Supreme Court of local 'piggy back' taxes in Maryland could create a huge fiscal hole for the state. In Comptroller of the Treasury of Maryland v. Wynne et ux. , * the Court affirmed Md. State Comptroller of the Treasury...
Budget & Taxes Pension Reforms Struck Down In States Twice in two weeks courts have rejected state pension reform laws. On April 30, Oregon’s Supreme Court ruled that the reductions the state made to cost-of-living adjustments in 2013...
Budget & Taxes Budget Surplus Surge In CA With the state’s economy continuing to improve, California lawmakers were expecting a budget surplus this year of about $2 billion. But last week Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins (D) announced that...
Budget & Taxes Transportation Funding Crisis Breeds Self-Reliance In States The transportation funding crisis in the states is continuing to worsen. At least six states -- Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Montana, Tennessee, and Wyoming -- have...
Budget & Taxes States Getting Worse At Revenue Forecasting States have gotten worse at forecasting revenues over the past three decades, according to a new report from the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Rockefeller Institute of Government at...
Budget & Taxes Lottery Success Spurs Backlash State lottery sales topped $70 billion last year in the 43 states that have them, according to the American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries. That sum represents more than 10 percent...
Budget & Taxes No Money For 2016 Primaries In LA Budget There’s a good chance term-limited Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) will make a run for the White House in 2016. And last year he signed a law to move the date of the state’s...
Budget & Taxes Will IN Become First State To Ban Internet Tax? State and local governments are currently banned from taxing access to the Internet by the federal Internet Tax Freedom Act, enacted in 1998 and extended several times since. But...
Budget & Taxes States Consider Taxing Non-Profits Under Maine Gov. Paul LePage’s (R) proposed budget, nonprofits in the state would lose their exemption from local property taxes. LePage’s plan is to lower the state income tax from...
Budget & Taxes LA GOV PROPOSES TAX-CREDIT CHANGES: Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's (R) administration proposed a 2016 budget last month that included deep cuts that would close community health clinics and historic sites, as well as force more...
Budget & Taxes RED AND BLUE STATES CONSIDERING TAX CUTS FOR MIDDLE-CLASS: Republican- and Democrat-dominated states are polls apart on most issues. But there appears to be some agreement about the need for tax cuts for low- and middle-income taxpayers...