Why Saving The Income Tax Is Critical For Seniors

1. Income tax is essential to funding seniors’ programs. Income tax provides one-third of all state revenue. State programs that serve seniors, including Medicaid, senior nutrition services, adult day services, adult protective services, and others can not be funded adequately… Read more [More...]

Why Saving The Income Tax Is Critical For Health Care

1. Income tax is essential to health care funding. One-third of all state tax revenue is from the income tax and nearly $500 million in income tax dollars support health care programs for low-income children, seniors, and persons with disabilities… Read more [More...]

The tax expenditure reform dog: Still not barking

Four months ago, a legislative task force chaired by Rep. David Dank and Sen. Mike Mazzei laid out an ambitious agenda for reforming Oklahoma’s tax expenditures. The group’s recommendations included ending tax credit transferability, enacting caps, sunsets, and regular audits… Read more [More...]

Tax cuts of the mid-2000’s did not spark revenue growth

[NOTE: This post has been corrected to fix an error in the units used when describing the price of oil.] Despite frequent claims by proponents of cutting or eliminating Oklahoma’s personal income tax , it is a myth that tax… Read more [More...]

Tax Cut Skeptics – Notable Quotes

Economists Kent Olson, Professor of Economics Emeritus, Oklahoma State University: “With full accountability, authors of tax cut legislation would have to specify how the cuts would be offset. If this were the practice, I believe we’d have a discussion about… Read more [More...]

Who's behind the assault on income tax?

Earlier this month, rival events on the income tax debate presented an illuminating contrast. OK Policy’s forum featured economists from Oklahoma public and private universities, as well as economic development experts from the state Department of Commerce and the OKC,… Read more [More...]

The terrible thing about triggers

Lawmakers began the year promising large, immediate cuts to the income tax, but their hopes soon collided with budget reality. With state funding already falling behind Oklahoma’s needs in many areas, legislators have found no easy way to pay for… Read more [More...]

Guest Blog (Steve Ellis): Evidence and Ideology: Beyond ECON 101

Stephen Ellis, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Oklahoma. His research areas include philosophy of economics, decision theory, philosophy of mind and ethics. The debate about the degree to which economics supports drastic… Read more [More...]

Watch This: Is eliminating the income tax the silver bullet or fool's gold?

On April 5, OK Policy sponsored a forum of leading Oklahoma economists, economic developers, and budget experts to discuss plans to reduce or eliminate the state income tax.  The eight speakers exposed fundamental flaws in the research being used to… Read more [More...]

The dream – or the nightmare – of a day without taxes

As the income tax filing deadline approaches, we return to a favorite blog post from our friend Paul Shinn that we first ran in 2009. You may also enjoy this video tribute to the many things we can be thankful… Read more [More...]