May 25, 2021 Janelle Cammenga
Last Friday, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt (R) signed House Bills 2960, 2962, and 2963 into law as part of a budget agreement, bringing the legislature’s tax plans across the finish line. These bills will reduce the state’s corporate and individual income tax rates beginning in tax year 2022.
House Bill 2960 reduces the corporate income tax from 6 percent to 4 percent. Among states with a typical corporate income tax, Oklahoma will now be tied with Missouri for the second lowest rate in the nation beat only by North Carolina’s 2.5 percent. (Lawmakers in North Carolina are currently considering a proposal to phase out the state’s corporate income tax altogether.) House Bill 2963 applies these new rates to pass-through businesses.
Legislators in Kansas have had enough of their state being a tax policy outlier.
After three years of deliberations, more than two-thirds of members in both the Senate and the House enacted tax reform and relief legislation Monday over the veto of Gov. Laura Kelly (D). Senate Bill 50 puts the state on firm legal standing by adopting a safe harbor for small remote sellers under the state’s sales tax and by excluding Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income (GILTI) from the state’s corporate income tax base. And it better aligns the state tax code with net income and provides individual income tax relief to individuals and families.
April 30, 2021 Katherine Loughead
The Kansas legislature will reconvene next week for its 2021 veto session, when legislators will reconsider bills that were vetoed by the governor. One such bill that has a second chance of being enacted, Senate Bill 50, would enhance Kansas’ economic competitiveness by improving the state’s corporate, individual, and sales tax structure while providing tax relief to individuals and businesses.
On our
State Business Tax Climate Index, which compares states’ tax structure, Kansas performs below average, ranking 35th out of the 50 states. If SB 50 were enacted, Kansas’ tax code would become much more competitive and improve substantially on the
how rather than the
how much. If enacted separately, each of the proposed major changes would raise that overall score to 40th, getting Louisiana (barely) out of the bottom 10. If all the proposed changes were implemented, Louisiana would improve to 34th. The proposed changes are:
Lowering individual income tax rates;
Establishing a flat corporate income tax of 6 percent;
Repealing the corporation franchise tax;
Eliminating inventory from the property tax base; and
Centralizing sales tax collections
Louisiana lawmakers will be considering a range of tax reform bills, but the primary effort has been spearheaded by Sen. Brett Allain (R) and Rep. Stuart Bishop (R), who have been facilitating discussions about improving the state tax code and gathering support for their policy priorities. The plan in question aims for revenue-neutral changes that will still improve the state’s competitiveness. Because there are a lot of moving parts to fiscal leadership’s plan, it is worth ou