In 2019, Texas enacted a new measure requiring all counties to deliver digital tax rate notices to property owners. In this “quick take,” the McNair Center’s Jennifer Rabb and Lebena Varghese summarize key findings from their research on how the government can make these tax rate notices clearer and more relevant to Texas taxpayers.
Truth-in-taxation measures, which are intended to serve taxpayers, have failed to constrain the property tax burden in Texas, write Jennifer Rabb and Lebena Varghese of the McNair Center for Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth. They argue that it is incumbent upon the government to make tax rate notices clear, relevant and above all truthful.
Texas lawmakers must address the misuse of anticipation notes — short-term debt securities used to raise money for public projects, writes John Diamond, the Edward A. and Hermena Hancock Kelly Fellow in Public Finance. Since they don’t require voter approval, politicians could use them to fund unwanted projects, he explains.
A number of states are moving toward accepting bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for tax payments, writes public finance fellow Joyce Beebe. She explores the challenges this may bring and why a sizable number of states are racing to be viewed as crypto-friendly.
This brief reviews the factors that distinguish a “hobby” from a “business” in the eyes of the IRS as well as associated requirements, common misapplications of regulations and the factors that go into a determination between the two.
Why does Texas have its own power grid, and how can its history inform the future of electric power in the state? Nonresident scholar Julie Cohn looks beyond the mythology surrounding the standalone Texas grid and finds that reliability and economics — not politics — were the major factors leading to isolation.
What’s the cheapest, quickest way to reduce climate change without roiling the economy? In the United States, it may be by reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas industry.
In this issue brief, public finance fellow Jorge Barro finds that lower state income taxation is associated with higher net taxpayer migration. Further, Barro explains that since the passage of the 2017 tax reform, taxpayers and earnings potential have both migrated to lower-taxing states at a faster rate.
