University of Wisconsin–Madison
Progressive Local Government
For the 21st Century

ProGov21 Policy Library

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San Francisco Values: The New Social Compact
Type Policy Brief or Report
Year 2009
Level City or Town
State(s) California
Source U.C. Berkeley Center For Labor Research and Education
Policy Areas Economic Justice, Civil Rights, Health, Finance & Procurement
This paper evaluates the large number of progressive policies the city of San Francisco has enacted in the last decade. This includes increased labor protections, enhanced union rights, local earned income tax credits, and a universal health access program....
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Child Tax Credit Enhancements Under the American Rescue Plan
Type Fact Sheet or Infographic
Year 2021
Level National
State(s) All States
Source Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy
Policy Areas Economic Justice, Children & Families
President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 relief package, the American Rescue Plan, includes a significant expansion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC). The proposal provides a $125 billion boost in funding for the program, which would double the size of the existing federal credit for households...
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The Property Tax Circuit Breaker: An Introduction and Survey of Current Programs
Type Policy Brief or Report
Year 2007
Level State
State(s) All States
Source Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Policy Areas Economic Justice
This report provides an introduction to property tax circuit breakers and describes the main features of circuit breaker programs currently being administered in eighteen states. Some of the features discussed include eligibility restrictions (based on whether the taxpayer is a homeowner...
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The ITEP Guide to Fair State and Local Taxes: Sales and Excise Taxes
Type Policy Brief or Report
Year 2011
Level County, City or Town
State(s) All States
Source Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy
Policy Areas Finance & Procurement, Democracy & Governance
Sales and excise taxes, or consumption taxes, are an important revenue source, comprising close to half of all state tax revenues in 2010. But these taxes are inevitably regressive, falling far more heavily on low- and middle income taxpayers than on the wealthy. Consumption taxes...
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A Good Deal for Mississippi? A Report on Taxpayer Assistance to Nissan in Canton, Mississippi
Type Policy Brief or Report
Year 2013
Level County, County
State(s) Mississippi
Source Good Jobs First
Policy Areas Children & Families, Civil Rights
Over the past decade Nissan has created thousands of manufacturing jobs in Mississippi. While the company has spent considerable amounts of its own money, it has also received large amounts of financial assistance from taxpayers at the local and state levels. This report documents...
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The Illusion of Race-Neutral Tax Policy
Type Policy Brief or Report
Year 2019
Level City or Town, State, National
State(s) All States
Source Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy
Policy Areas Economic Justice, Civil Rights
Examining tax laws only in the context of class is a “colorblind” approach to tax and economic policy that ignores how tax policies affect communities based on race. Historical instances of explicitly racist tax policies, such as the slave tax, continue to impact state and local...
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State Options to Shore up Revenues and Improve Tax Codes amid Pandemic
Type Policy Brief or Report
Year 2020
Level State
State(s) All States
Source Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy
Policy Areas Economic Justice
The devastating effect of COVID-19 on state and local budgets is exposing state and local tax structures as inadequate, inequitable, and outdated. In response, states should focus first on generating needed revenue through tax increases on households, businesses, and sectors of the...
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Raising Revenue Through Municipal Corporate Taxation
Type Policy Brief or Report
Year 2020
Level City or Town, State
State(s) All States
Source Local Progress
Policy Areas -
The 2017 partisan tax reform law accelerated the United States’ rising inequality by slashing taxes of wealthy individuals and corporations and expanding the federal deficit, ultimately straining municipal budgets. In order to restore fairness to the tax code and generate revenue...
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Expanding State EITCs: Age Enhancements and a Credit Increase for Workers without Children in the Home
Type Policy Brief or Report
Year 2020
Level State
State(s) All States
Source Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy
Policy Areas Economic Justice, Children & Families
In offsetting federal income and payroll taxes and supplementing the earnings of low-wage workers across the country, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is one of the most effective anti-poverty programs in the U.S. However, the EITC provides little or no benefits to workers without...
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Cutting Taxes to Strengthen the Economy and Boost Hawai'i's Families: A Refundable State Earned Income Tax Credit
Type Policy Brief or Report
Year 2016
Level State
State(s) Hawaii
Source Hawai'i Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice
Policy Areas Economic Justice, Democracy & Governance
Building a stronger Hawaii for businesses and residents means creating more opportunities for working families to climb the economic ladder. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a proven tool for fostering economic prosperity. The federal EITC is a tax credit that reduces or eliminates...
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Racial Equity and Taxes in Southern States
Type Policy Brief or Report
Year 2020
Level State
State(s) All States
Source Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy
Policy Areas Economic Justice, Civil Rights
Generally, southern states levy taxes in a way that worsens racial and economic equity. Most southern states raise less revenue than states in other regions, leading to underinvestment in people and places. This lack of revenue contributes to staggering levels of poverty, particularly...
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Federal Tax Credits for Working Families
Type Policy Brief or Report
Year 2017
Level County
State(s) All States
Source SiX Action
Policy Areas Children & Families, Housing, Public Safety, Education, Food, Finance & Procurement, Economic Justice, Civil Rights
Many working families in America struggle to get ahead. The rising costs of basic needs, such as housing, health care, child care, and transportation are at odds with stagnating or slow-growing wages and a tax system that favors the wealthy. For these families especially, taxes can...
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Property Tax Circuit Breakers: Fair and Cost-Effective Relief for Taxpayers
Type Policy Brief or Report
Year 2009
Level State
State(s) All States
Source Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
Policy Areas Economic Justice, Finance & Procurement
Property tax circuit breakers provide households with direct property tax relief that increases as household income declines. In addition to analyzing the advantages of circuit breakers, this report outlines the basic types of property tax circuit breakers and examines whether eligibility...
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Who Pays for Parking: How Federal Tax Subsidies Jam More Cars into Congested Cities, and How Cities Can Reclaim Their Streets
Type Policy Brief or Report
Year 2017
Level City or Town
State(s) All States
Source Transit Center
Policy Areas Transportation & Mobility
The federal tax benefit for commuter parking excludes the value of commuter parking provided by employers from the calculation of a worker’s taxable income. The “check” is bigger for people who make more money or work in the downtown areas of major cities, but the costs of the program...
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Standing Guard: How Unaccountable Contracting Fails Governments and Taxpayers
Type Policy Brief or Report
Year 2014
Level City or Town
State(s) All States
Source In the Public Interest
Policy Areas Finance & Procurement
As local and state governments increasingly contract out public services that impact the well-being of their community, the need for robust contract oversight is increasing. A lack of oversight has detrimental impacts on the people served by a program or service, and for the public...
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The Revenue Impact of Corporate Tax Incentives on South Carolina Public Schools
Type Policy Brief or Report
Year 2020
Level County, State, School District
State(s) All States
Source Good Jobs First
Policy Areas Economic Justice, Education
Public school districts in South Carolina suffered a sharp increase in lost tax revenue in FY 2019 due to tax breaks granted to private corporations by county governments. The revenues of South Carolina’s school districts are reduced via state permitted programs that grant businesses...
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The Case for Extending State-Level Child Tax Credits to Those Left Out: A 50-State Analysis
Type Policy Brief or Report
Year 2019
Level State
State(s) All States
Source Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy
Policy Areas Economic Justice, Children & Families
The current federal Child Tax Credit (CTC), which provides up to $2,000 per child, is designed to provide an income boost to parents or guardians of children and other dependents. However, many low-income families do not receive the full benefit of the federal credit due to an earnings...
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2006 Boulder Carbon Tax Ordinance 7483
Type Ordinance
Year 2006
Level City or Town
State(s) Colorado
Source City Council of the City of Boulder
Policy Areas Environment & Natural Resources, Finance & Procurement
This ordinance imposes the Climate Action Plan Tax as an excise tax upon persons consuming electricity as residential, commercial, or industrial customers. The tax shall be imposed upon the basis of each customer’s consumption of electricity measured in Kilowatt/Hours. The purpose...
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Memphis Blues: How Corporate Property Tax Breaks and Stadium Subsidies are Sapping the City’s Fiscal Strength
Type Policy Brief or Report
Year 2014
Level City or Town
State(s) Tennessee
Source Good Jobs First
Policy Areas -
The City of Memphis has deliberately avoided its municipal pension obligations at the same time it has granted a series of costly property tax abatements, such as payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTs), to large corporations and sports franchises. For every year between 2009 and 2012,...
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City of Boulder Climate Action Plan Excise Tax
Type Ordinance
Year 2012
Level City or Town
State(s) Colorado
Source City of Boulder
Policy Areas Energy, Environment & Natural Resources
This ordinance seeks to raise revenue to implement the City's Climate Action Plan, including incentives, services and other assistance to Boulder residents and businesses to improve energy efficiency, expand the use of renewable energy, and take other necessary steps toward reducing...
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Local Income Taxes: City- and County-Level Income and Wage Taxes Continue to Wane
Type Policy Brief or Report
Year 2011
Level City or Town, County
State(s) All States
Source Tax Foundation
Policy Areas Democracy & Governance
Most U.S. cities and counties do not impose a local income tax, but they are imposed by 4,943 jurisdictions in 17 states, encompassing over 23 million Americans. Varying from minute amounts in several states to an average 1.55 percent in Maryland (see Table 1), these taxes provide...
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The New Math on School Finance: Adding Up the First-Ever Disclosure of Corporate Tax Abatements’ Cost to Public Education
Type Policy Brief or Report
Year 2018
Level City or Town, State, School District
State(s) All States
Source Good Jobs First
Policy Areas Economic Justice, Education
The Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) Statement 77 requires most state and local government bodies, including school districts, to annually disclose the costs of corporate tax abatements. As a result of the new rule, thousands of America’s public school districts are...
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Closing the LLC Loophole: House makes needed changes
Type Policy Brief or Report
Year 2019
Level City or Town
State(s) Ohio
Source Policy Matters Ohio
Policy Areas -
LLC loophole is a reduced taxes on business income. It was designed as a tool to spur creation of new firms and create jobs but the emplyment and overall economy does not increase....
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The U.S. Needs a Federal Wealth Tax
Type Policy Brief or Report
Year 2019
Level National
State(s) All States
Source Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy
Policy Areas Economic Justice, Civil Rights
A federal wealth tax on the richest 0.1 percent of Americans is a viable approach for Congress to raise revenue and address rising inequality. This report outlines reasons why the United States needs a federal wealth tax to achieve these goals, as opposed to federal tax policies that...
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Recovery for All or Recovery for the Few?: Billionaire Wealth Soars in Connecticut
Type Policy Brief or Report
Year 2021
Level State
State(s) Connecticut
Source The Center for Popular Democracy
Policy Areas Economic Justice
While Connecticut’s working families are struggling with low wages, threats of eviction, food instability, lack of affordable health care, and high levels of unemployment amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Connecticut’s wealthiest residents have amassed unprecedented wealth. In response...
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