The Deductibility of State and Local Taxes

The federal individual income tax allows taxpayers to claim a number of so-called tax preferences. Some take the form of exclusions and deductions that reduce taxpayers’ taxable income, and some are credits that may reduce how much tax people owe. All of those preferences decrease the revenues that the federal government raises from a given set of statutory tax rates. Preferences benefit only taxpayers who meet certain eligibility criteria and may alter how those individuals behave toward the tax-preferred activity. They also raise issues of equity regarding otherwise similarly situated taxpayers who do not benefit from such tax-favored treatment.

One such preference is the deduction that the current tax code allows for certain state and local tax payments—those for real estate and personal property taxes along with either income or general sales taxes—subject to the limits that apply to all itemized deductions.¹ Deducting state and local taxes under the federal individual income tax subsidizes the revenue-raising activities of state and local governments as long as the revenues are raised through deductible taxes. Because taxpayers who claim the "taxes-paid" deduction may thereby reduce their federal tax liability, the "cost" to the itemizing taxpayer of an additional dollar of revenue raised through deductible state or local taxes is less than a dollar. If that lower cost for taxpayers encourages state and local governments to raise revenue from deductible sources, the reduction in federal tax will constitute an indirect federal subsidy of eligible taxes at the state or local level.

One of the criteria for evaluating whether a federal subsidy is an efficient use of scarce federal resources is the national benefits that it provides. If the taxes-paid deduction encourages state and local governments to use deductible taxes to fund additional services that create spillover benefits to other regions of the country, then the deduction provides a benefit to the federal taxpayers who implicitly finance the preference. If the deduction does not prompt states or localities to change their behavior in that way, or if they use deductible taxes in place of nondeductible levies and do not offer additional services, then the deduction provides a federal subsidy to taxpayers that is not related to state and local services but to the amount of individuals’ income and whether or not they choose to itemize on their tax returns.

During the past few decades, policymakers have limited the taxes-paid deduction on several occasions, and the 2005 President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform recommended its elimination.² That trend toward constraining the deduction was reversed during two recent Congresses, when the deduction was expanded. Changes in the treatment of state and local taxes under the individual income tax continue to be considered, in large part because of the way they would interact with the alternative minimum tax (AMT). The AMT is an additional method of computing tax liability that, unlike the ordinary income tax, does not allow the deduction of state and local taxes and is not indexed for inflation. Consequently, as more and more taxpayers become subject to the AMT as their income rises, fewer of them will benefit from the taxes-paid deduction. Indeed, the deduction is one of the tax preferences that the AMT was designed to constrain; it may thus be a candidate for restriction or elimination as lawmakers look for ways to replace the revenues that would be lost if the AMT was limited or repealed.

This Congressional Budget Office (CBO) paper discusses various issues surrounding the deduction of state and local taxes under the federal individual income tax. (Box 1 briefly describes the data and methods that CBO used in its analysis.) The report examines the deduction and discusses the underlying rationales for the preference and the criticisms leveled at it. The paperalso describes the characteristics of taxpayers who claim the deduction and the geographical distribution of its benefits.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) used two data sets—one from the Bureau of the Census and the other from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)— in its analysis of the taxes-paid (state and local tax) deduction. CBO obtained data on state and local tax revenues from the Census Bureau’s survey of state and local government finances, which reports those revenues by various categories. The share of each type of tax collected was then calculated as a percentage of the government’s total own-source revenues (in this report, all revenues not received from another government or from government-run utilities, liquor stores, or insurance trust funds); receipts from deductible taxes were reported as personal income tax, general sales tax, and property tax revenues. Data on the taxes-paid deduction in the federal individual income tax came from the IRS’s Statistics of Income files.

As part of the analysis, the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) prepared estimates of the budgetary effects of five alternatives for changing the deduction: eliminating it, limiting it to a maximum of 2 percent of adjusted gross income, capping the deduction at an indexed dollar amount, replacing the deduction with a credit for currently deductible taxes, and restricting the deduction to real estate taxes. JCT also estimated the budgetary effects of combining those options with changes to the alternative minimum tax (AMT)—specifically, permanently increasing the AMT exemption amounts and brackets to their 2006 levels and indexing them thereafter.

CBO calculated changes in average tax liability by income group and by region using its microsimulation tax model. It assumed that taxpayers would choose whether to take the standard deduction or to itemize on the basis of whichever method minimized their tax liability. In distributional estimates combining the options discussed in this paper with the AMT’s indexation, CBO assumed that a taxpayer would choose to itemize deductions—even if those deductions did not exceed the standard deduction— if itemizing would limit his or her tax liability under the AMT.

As part of its analysis, CBO presents various alternatives for limiting the deductibility of state and local taxes. Using estimates by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) to illustrate how those constraints would affect federal revenues, CBO considers the alternatives both on their own and in the context of possible changes to the AMT. CBO also analyzes how those limits would affect the projected tax liability of various groups of taxpayers—groups based on both income and geography—in 2010 and 2011. By using those years, CBO’s estimates highlight the differences in liability related to deductibility under two conditions: when current law includes the tax provisions enacted since 2001 in their fully phased-in form (in 2010) and when it does not include them, because they have expired (in 2011).

The preference for state and local taxes is one of the largest tax expenditures in the individual income tax system; estimates by the Joint Committee on Taxation put its cost to the federal government in fiscal year 2007 at roughly $51 billion.³ (Only the exclusion of pension contributions and earnings, the exclusion of employers’ contributions for health care, and the deduction of mortgage interest result in more forgone federal revenues.) The deductibility of state and local taxes, direct grants, and the ability to issue tax-exempt bonds are the primary types of federal subsidy provided to state and local governments. Direct grants are the largest in terms of the federal government’s costs; deductibility and tax-exempt debt each make up less than one-tenth of the estimated amount that will be spent on direct aid in 2008 (see Table 1).⁴

Sources: Congressional Budget Office based on Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2009: Analytical Perspectives (direct grants); and Joint Committee on Taxation, Estimates of Federal Tax Expenditures, 2007–2011, JCS-3-07 (September 24, 2007).

b. The taxes-paid deduction allows taxpayers to deduct from their adjusted gross income some of the taxes they pay to state and local governments, including income or sales, real estate, and other taxes. The provision allowing sales taxes to be deducted expired at the end of 2007.

After policymakers made substantial changes to the tax code in 1986 (discussed below), the number of taxpayers who itemized and claimed the taxes-paid deduction dropped (see Figure 1). In recent years, however, that number has risen. In 2004, the most recent year for which data were available, 35 percent of taxpayers itemized deductions, and virtually all of them claimed the taxes-paid deduction on their tax return. Most of the taxes claimed are income taxes (56 percent of the total in 2004) and real estate taxes (36 percent; see Figure 2). Deductions for sales taxes, personal property taxes, and miscellaneous taxes each amounted to 5 percent or less of the total state and local taxes claimed.

Source: Congressional Budget Office based on data from the Internal Revenue Service’s Statistics of Income file.

Note: The taxes-paid deduction allows taxpayers to deduct from their adjusted gross income some of the taxes they pay to state and local governments, including income or sales, real estate, and other taxes. The provision allowing sales taxes to be deducted expired at the end of 2007.

Source: Congressional Budget Office based on data from the Internal Revenue Service’s Statistics of Income file.

Under the rules for determining tax liability for 2007, taxpayers who itemize their deductions may choose to deduct either state or local income taxes or general sales taxes. (As noted earlier, however, beginning in 2008 only income taxes may be deducted.) Taxpayers who claim a deduction for sales taxes may deduct either the actual sales taxes they paid or, using tables that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) provides, an estimated amount based on their income and the number of exemptions they claim. They may also deduct taxes based on the assessed value of real estate that they own and personal property that is not used for a business.⁵ The overall effect of those provisions is to reduce the tax liability of filers who pay state and local taxes and claim the deduction.

The taxes-paid deduction is subject to certain limits. First, the total allowable amount of a number of itemized deductions, including that for state and local taxes, may be reduced. For 2007, the reduction, which can be no more than 53-1/3 percent, is calculated by taking 2 percent of any amount that taxpayers’ adjusted gross income, or AGI, exceeds a statutory threshold. The limit is scheduled to change several times in the next few years as the tax provisions enacted since 2001 are fully phased in, by 2010, and then expire, in 2011.

Second, the AMT limits the benefits that taxpayers (and thus, indirectly, governments) receive from the deductibility of state and local taxes. Taxpayers must pay the larger of their liability under the AMT or under the individual income tax. In computing liability under the alternative tax, a taxpayer must include in taxable income several items that are deductible under the ordinary income tax and then subtract the statutory AMT exemption amount; the remaining income is taxed at one of two AMT rates. The largest preference that taxpayers must forgo under the AMT is the deduction for state and local taxes. Without further changes to the alternative tax, many taxpayers will lose the benefit of the taxes-paid deduction.

The legislative history of the deduction for state and local taxes shows two markedly different patterns. During much of the time that the deduction has been in effect, lawmakers focused on clarifying or limiting the preference. Since 2001, though, legislation has expanded the allowable deduction and thus the subsidy provided to taxpayers and to state and local governments.

The taxes-paid preference dates from the enactment of the modern income tax. The Revenue Act of 1913 listed "all national, state, county, school, and municipal taxes paid within the year, not including those assessed against local benefits," as one of various items that taxpayers could deduct in arriving at their taxable income. At the time, the law’s large exemption amounts meant that few people actually paid the income tax, so the preference’s administrative burden and the forgone revenues from the deduction were relatively small.

By the end of World War II, the proportion of the population who paid income taxes had grown dramatically, from about 5 percent when the tax was enacted to nearly 75 percent in 1944. To lessen the complexity of filing, the Congress introduced the standard deduction, which allowed taxpayers to eliminate the recordkeeping necessary to claim any of the itemized deductions. Today, a substantial majority of taxpayers—in 2004, 65 percent—choose to use the standard deduction.

For the most part, legislation enacted during the past 50 years has gradually limited the taxes-paid deduction for those who choose to itemize and claim it. The Revenue Act of 1964 changed the treatment of state and local taxes so that only taxes specifically mentioned in the tax code—namely, taxes on real and personal property, as well as income, general sales, and motor fuels taxes—were deductible. Other legislation clarified the deduction for sales taxes as being limited to a retail tax imposed at a single rate on many classes of items. Because of the considerable recordkeeping necessary to claim a deduction for all of the sales taxes paid, taxpayers were given the option of using a general deduction amount based on their income and household size. A few years later, the Revenue Act of 1978 eliminated the deduction for taxes on motor fuel.

When policymakers discussed major tax reform in the 1980s, one of the many proposals they considered was the elimination of the state and local tax deduction. The Tax Reform Act of 1986, the outcome of those deliberations, repealed only the deduction for general sales taxes; that action came amid concerns about the deduction’s administrative burden for those who did not choose to use the IRS’s sales tax deduction tables and a perception that, for those who did use the tables, the deduction amount was insufficient. However, the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 partially reinstated the sales tax deduction for 2004 and 2005, allowing taxpayers to choose to deduct either sales taxes (the documented amount they paid or a standardized amount based on their income and household size) or income taxes. Policymakers extended that provision for 2006 and 2007 in the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006.

The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 enacted a general limit on itemized deductions, which is often called the Pease provision, after Congressman Donald Pease, who proposed it. Under that limit, certain itemized deductions—including that for state and local taxes—were temporarily reduced by 3 percent of the amount that a taxpayer’s adjusted gross income exceeded an indexed threshold, with a maximum reduction of 80 percent of deductible expenses. In 1993, lawmakers made the limit permanent. However, one of the provisions of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA) phased out the Pease provision, reducing the limit by one-third for tax years 2006 and 2007 and two-thirds for 2008 and 2009, and then eliminating it for 2010. At the same time, the lower statutory tax rates that EGTRRA put in place reduced the tax benefit from the additional deductions. Because that law expires at the end of 2010, the general limit on itemized deductions will again apply in its original full form beginning in 2011.

Over the next several years, the interaction of inflation, economic growth, and existing provisions in the tax code will also affect the deductibility of state and local taxes. Inflation will increase the number of taxpayers who are affected by the AMT. Unlike the schedule of tax brackets and exemptions for the individual income tax, the brackets and exemptions for the AMT are not indexed for inflation. As a result, the growth of nominal income will cause more and more taxpayers to pay the alternative tax—which, as noted earlier, does not allow a deduction for state and local taxes paid. Policymakers have enacted legislation that temporarily increases the AMT’s exemption amounts, limiting the number of taxpayers subject to the tax. The most recent temporary increase, which was enacted in December 2007 and applies to 2007 tax liabilities, expired at the end of that calendar year.

An informed discussion of possible changes to the deduction for state and local taxes requires an understanding of several key issues. First, how does deductibility affect a state or local government’s incentive to tax or to provide public services? Second, how does the current composition of state and local government revenues affect the benefits those governments receive from deductibility? Third, how are the benefits from deductibility distributed among taxpayers?

The desirability of a deduction for state and local taxes is closely related to the rationales for fiscal federalism—the systematic division of responsibilities among the federal, state, and local governments in terms of the services they provide to taxpayers. As a general principle, a number of public services are provided at the state and local—not at the federal—level for two reasons. First, smaller governmental units may perform many services more efficiently than larger units because they are better acquainted with the local circumstances in which those services are provided. Second, performing services locally permits greater variation in the type and number of them that can be provided, allowing such services to better satisfy the varying preferences of a diverse population.

That second point is key to understanding a common rationale for and a frequent criticism of the taxes-paid deduction. Under fiscal federalism, the variation permitted in the services that are provided may promote the population’s general welfare with respect to certain kinds of services. For example, to better suit their preferences for street lights, parks, and even public safety, citizens may sort themselves into different communities that provide different amounts of those services. However, some services, such as public assistance and education, provide general benefits that are not easily restricted to those who have financed them and that "spill over" to people in other states and localities. A so-called free-rider problem results: Citizens can live in communities that do not provide such services, and therefore avoid paying for them, but they may benefit from services provided by neighboring communities. Knowing that, state and local governments will tend to provide fewer of those services than they might otherwise.

Financing public goods with large spillover benefits at the federal level would avoid that free-rider problem and the associated underprovision of services by state and local governments. However, the public services that the respective levels of government provide do not break down neatly along those lines. In practice, state and local governments supply a number of services that have nationwide benefits and therefore might be thought of as principally federal in nature. The potential underprovision of such services can be offset if the federal government assists those governments financially, either through direct grants or subsidies.

For several reasons, a deduction for certain state and local taxes may not be the appropriate way to compensate state and local governments for providing services that have national benefits. If deductible taxes are simply charges that cover the value of services desired by taxpayers who have efficiently chosen a particular local community, the rationale for subsidizing those different preferences at the federal level is weak—unless there are significant differences among localities in the cost of providing services. In fact, the original legislation enacting the federal income tax explicitly labeled as nondeductible local taxes paid in return for local benefits. Some deductible taxes, though, are clearly not charges for such benefits. State income taxes, for example, are generally considered to have a redistributive function, although the extent to which they redistribute income varies widely among the states and is small relative to the redistributive capacity of the federal income tax.

Another reason that the taxes-paid deduction may not offset the underprovision of services is that it may simply encourage state and local governments to use deductible taxes in place of nondeductible taxes (levies such as selective—rather than general—sales taxes) without increasing spending for the desired activities. If so, the subsidy does not effectively encourage those governments to provide services that generate national benefits. Some evidence exists to show that deductibility affects the mix of taxes that states and localities choose for financing their activities, but there is relatively little that suggests that deductibility actually increases spending for services.⁶

Moreover, the deduction may spur state and local governments to provide services that are neither federal in nature nor targeted toward areas of national concern. The indirect nature of the subsidy means that its size and use are not subject to ongoing federal oversight. The lack of monitoring means that state and local governments can use the benefits thus conferred to finance any services they provide to local taxpayers, regardless of the nature of those services. As a result, the subsidy may interfere with the sorting mechanism that otherwise helps keep local public services at levels appropriate to their value to local taxpayers. Because of the subsidy, too many of those services may be supplied, and state and local governments may be bigger as a result.

Those competing factors—the federal government’s interest in assisting state and local governments to provide public services that have benefits beyond their borders and the possibility that such help generates an inefficiently large volume of local services—are the principal pro and con arguments associated with the deduction. Nevertheless, some other issues are also significant.

A common argument for allowing taxpayers to deduct state and local taxes is that of avoiding unfair double taxation. The contention is that resources claimed as taxes by state and local governments are not truly available to taxpayers and thus should not be considered part of the basis for federal taxation. In fact, that argument involves some of the same issues discussed earlier. If state and local taxes are benefit charges and reflect variations in the amount of local public services that taxpayers desire, then such taxes are a form of public consumption and therefore a fair basis for a levy that rests on the concept of people’s ability to pay. If state and local taxes finance services whose benefits spill over to other localities, then the federal subsidy, which has federal benefits, may be justified regardless of the double taxation issue.

Another argument for the taxes-paid deduction involves its effect on marginal tax rates (that is, the total rate on the last dollar of income). By reducing the combined federal, state, and local marginal tax rate on income, the deduction lessens the deterrents to earning income that are inherent in high tax rates. But that reduction in disincentive effects on the so-called individual margin (people’s choice between work and leisure) occurs by changing the incentives on another margin—either the state or local government’s marginal choice between types of taxes (deductible or nondeductible) or the kinds and number of services the governments provide. Whether the combined changes ultimately lessen the overall disincentive effects of the tax code depends on the choices that individuals and governments make.

How benefits from the deduction are distributed among states and localities depends on the structure of a government’s tax system and the characteristics of the taxpayers who provide revenue to that government. For example, a state or local government that finances its spending by using a larger share of taxes that are deductible under the federal individual income tax receives a larger subsidy through the deductibility provision than an otherwise identical government that finances its spending through a smaller share of deductible taxes. All else being equal, a state or local government whose taxpayers are more likely to itemize deductions also gains a greater benefit than a government whose taxpayers tend to claim the standard deduction.

Distribution of Benefits to State and Local Governments. Revenue sources for state and local governments vary widely. For state governments in 2004, taxes made up about 50 percent of "own-source revenues" for all states.⁷ However, the share of an individual state’s own-source revenues coming from taxes (which include individual income, general sales, property, and other levies) ranged from a high of about 67 percent in Connecticut to just over 20 percent in Alaska (see Table 2).

						Share of Total	Potentially Deductible
	Share of Own-Source Revenues from:^a					Revenues from	Taxes as a Share of:
	Individual	General	Property	Other	Nontax	Federal	Own-Source
State	Income Tax	Sales Tax	Tax	Taxes	Sources	Transfers	Revenues^a	Income^b


Alabama	15.3	12.9	1.5	18.1	52.2	29.1	16.8	2.0
Alaska	0	0	0.7	19.5	79.8	24.7	0.7	0.2
Arizona	13.8	28.1	2.1	13.4	42.6	27.7	15.8	1.6
Arkansas	16.6	21.1	5.1	12.0	45.2	28.3	21.7	3.1
California	20.3	14.7	1.2	11.5	52.3	19.9	21.4	3.0
Colorado	18.5	10.3	0	9.3	61.9	19.6	18.5	2.1
Connecticut	28.1	20.3	0	18.5	33.1	21.1	28.1	2.7
Delaware	16.8	0	0	34.3	48.8	17.9	16.8	2.6
District of Columbia	17.1	11.9	16.8	19.0	35.3	30.7	33.9	7.3
Florida	0	29.2	0.5	22.4	47.9	22.0	29.7	3.2
Georgia	26.6	19.1	0.3	10.7	43.3	26.0	26.8	2.6
Hawaii	17.7	28.8	0	11.8	41.6	19.8	17.7	2.8
Idaho	16.9	19.3	0	13.1	50.7	24.4	16.9	2.4
Illinois	15.9	15.3	0.1	21.0	47.7	21.3	16.1	1.6
Indiana	19.2	24.0	0	17.0	39.8	25.7	19.2	2.0
Iowa	17.3	14.3	0	14.5	54.0	25.5	17.3	2.1
Kansas	23.8	24.0	0.7	17.1	34.3	26.9	24.5	2.3
Kentucky	19.6	17.1	3.2	18.9	41.2	29.0	22.8	2.9
Louisiana	13.3	16.3	0.2	17.2	52.9	29.4	13.6	1.8
Maine	20.3	16.1	0.8	13.1	49.7	30.9	21.1	3.1
Maryland	24.0	12.3	2.2	17.6	43.8	21.9	26.2	2.6
Massachusetts	27.1	11.5	0	13.1	48.4	20.7	27.1	3.3
Michigan	13.9	18.7	4.9	16.0	46.5	24.1	18.8	2.5
Minnesota	24.5	17.4	2.6	18.6	36.8	20.9	27.1	3.4
Mississippi	10.7	25.0	0.4	15.5	48.4	34.1	11.1	1.5
Missouri	19.7	15.6	0.1	12.8	51.8	27.5	19.8	2.1
Montana	16.2	0	4.9	22.3	56.6	31.1	21.1	3.1
Nebraska	20.9	25.7	0	14.7	38.7	28.4	21.0	2.2
Nevada	0	26.4	1.6	27.6	44.4	15.5	28.0	3.0
New Hampshire	1.2	0	11.0	32.4	55.4	23.6	12.2	1.2
New Jersey	18.0	15.3	0	17.8	48.8	17.8	18.1	2.0
New Mexico	12.2	17.5	0.6	18.1	51.6	29.1	12.8	2.1
New York	27.8	11.3	0	12.5	48.3	30.2	27.8	3.3
North Carolina	22.9	13.3	0	15.2	48.6	24.9	22.9	3.0
North Dakota	5.3	9.2	0	16.1	69.3	22.8	5.4	1.1
Ohio	14.1	12.8	0.1	9.5	63.5	18.9	14.2	2.5
Oklahoma	17.9	12.3	0	19.4	50.4	25.6	17.9	2.4
Oregon	21.0	0	0.1	8.9	70.0	16.9	21.1	3.9
Pennsylvania	13.6	14.4	0.1	18.9	53.0	21.9	13.7	1.8
Rhode Island	17.4	15.6	0	13.6	53.4	27.3	17.4	2.4
South Carolina	16.2	18.2	0.1	10.8	54.7	27.4	16.3	2.1
South Dakota	0	22.3	0	18.2	59.5	31.6	22.3	2.5
Tennessee	0.9	39.2	0	23.8	36.1	36.7	39.2	3.3
Texas	0	23.8	0	23.6	52.6	27.5	23.8	2.2
Utah	16.4	15.2	0	9.2	59.2	21.3	16.4	2.6
Vermont	14.4	8.6	15.0	21.1	40.9	30.5	29.4	4.4
Virginia	25.2	10.1	0.1	12.9	51.8	17.0	25.2	2.8
Washington	0	29.9	5.4	14.0	50.6	19.0	35.4	4.6
West Virginia	12.8	12.3	0	19.9	55.0	28.0	12.9	2.3
Wisconsin	18.8	14.0	0.4	12.1	54.7	19.0	19.2	3.0
Wyoming	0	14.8	4.5	28.9	51.8	37.5	19.3	3.5

All States	16.5	16.6	0.9	15.6	50.5	23.6	17.4	2.1

Source: Congressional Budget Office based on the Bureau of the Census’s survey of state and local government finances.

How much of the tax share of states’ own-source revenues is eligible for federal subsidization through the taxes-paid preference? One measure of the subsidy is the share of all revenues collected by a state (or local) government from taxes that the Internal Revenue Code labels as deductible. That measure is an upper bound on the extent of the federal subsidy; taxpayers do not actually claim all types of legally deductible taxes on their returns—because not all taxpayers itemize and because for some taxpayers, the deduction is limited. In 2004, potentially deductible revenues were about 17 percent of states’ total own-source revenues; shares ranged from a low near zero in Alaska to highs near 40 percent in Washington and Tennessee.⁸ Revenues from direct federal transfers—at just under 24 percent of revenues from all sources—made up a larger share of total state budgets than did potentially deductible taxes.

Although state governments tend to raise most of their tax revenues from income or sales taxes, local governments depend primarily on property taxes for revenues. About 38 percent of localities’ total own-source revenues came from property taxes in 2004, although among the states, that percentage varied widely by local jurisdiction (see Table 3).⁹ By comparison with state governments, local governments tend to raise a larger share of their revenues from deductible sources because of their dependence on real estate taxes, which make up the majority of property tax revenues. The average local government raises about 40 percent of its own-source revenues from potentially deductible taxes, with a range of about 15 percent for localities in Alabama and Arkansas to approximately 75 percent for those in New Hampshire and New Jersey.

						Share of
						Total Revenues from		Potentially Deductible
	Share of Own-Source Revenues from:^a					Intergovernmental		Taxes as a Share of:
	Individual	General	Property	Other	Nontax	Transfers		Own-Source
State	Income Tax	Sales Tax	Tax	Taxes	Sources	Federal	State	Revenues^a	Income^b


Alabama	1.0	12.5	13.7	6.2	66.7	3.5	28.3	14.6	1.2
Alaska	0	7.6	41.4	3.7	47.3	7.6	28.2	49.0	4.3
Arizona	0	11.8	32.3	4.8	51.1	4.5	32.7	32.3	2.7
Arkansas	0.1	19.1	16.3	3.6	61.0	3.7	44.8	16.4	0.8
California	0	6.2	26.0	6.4	61.3	4.3	34.9	26.0	2.6
Colorado	0	15.0	31.4	3.7	50.0	3.3	22.4	31.4	2.8
Connecticut	0	0	72.3	1.4	26.3	2.9	26.5	72.3	4.3
Delaware	3.4	0	33.2	8.7	54.7	2.9	40.4	36.6	1.7
Florida	0	1.7	35.1	8.0	55.2	3.6	24.1	36.8	3.5
Georgia	0	9.8	34.9	5.0	50.3	2.7	27.9	34.9	2.9
Hawaii	0	0	46.2	15.5	38.2	10.4	9.1	46.2	1.8
Idaho	0	0	43.2	2.9	53.8	3.3	36.6	43.2	2.9
Illinois	0	2.5	45.4	6.8	45.3	5.3	25.0	45.4	4.0
Indiana	3.1	0	44.0	1.7	51.3	2.0	33.2	47.1	3.5
Iowa	0.8	6.0	46.1	2.1	45.0	3.7	31.3	46.9	3.5
Kansas	0	7.5	43.3	3.0	46.3	1.6	28.3	43.3	3.8
Kentucky	13.0	0.2	27.1	8.0	51.7	3.4	36.0	40.1	2.2
Louisiana	0	26.4	22.1	4.5	47.0	4.7	29.4	22.1	1.8
Maine	0	0	74.9	2.1	23.0	2.9	28.1	74.9	5.2
Maryland	20.0	0	36.8	9.6	33.6	4.9	23.8	56.7	3.9
Massachusetts	0	0	54.2	2.0	43.8	5.3	28.6	54.2	3.6
Michigan	2.1	0	43.4	2.0	52.4	3.9	42.1	45.6	3.2
Minnesota	0	0.5	34.6	2.5	62.4	4.1	41.7	34.6	2.3
Mississippi	0	0	35.7	2.8	61.5	4.6	38.2	35.7	2.6
Missouri	2.4	13.0	32.7	6.4	45.6	4.2	26.0	35.1	2.6
Montana	0	0	53.0	2.1	44.9	7.4	34.7	53.0	3.0
Nebraska	0	3.4	28.6	6.1	61.9	2.0	18.2	28.6	3.5
Nevada	0	3.5	31.1	15.7	49.8	3.4	33.4	34.6	2.8
New Hampshire	0	0	76.9	1.4	21.6	2.9	32.3	76.9	4.3
New Jersey	0	0	75.5	1.4	23.1	2.6	29.7	75.5	5.0
New Mexico	0	18.0	27.6	5.0	49.4	5.9	48.7	27.6	1.6
New York	6.8	10.3	35.9	8.7	38.3	3.3	29.6	42.7	5.2
North Carolina	0	8.1	32.4	3.0	56.5	2.9	33.8	32.4	2.4
North Dakota	0	5.3	48.5	2.1	44.1	6.3	31.9	48.5	3.1
Ohio	12.7	5.0	40.7	2.3	39.4	4.1	34.6	53.4	4.1
Oklahoma	0	19.2	26.5	3.0	51.3	3.4	33.3	26.5	1.7
Oregon	1.2	0	40.7	9.8	48.4	5.7	33.7	41.8	3.2
Pennsylvania	9.9	0.6	41.2	5.8	42.5	6.1	31.3	51.1	3.7
Rhode Island	0	0	74.1	1.5	24.4	3.9	28.3	74.1	4.8
South Carolina	0	1.2	39.6	6.1	53.1	2.9	28.1	39.6	3.2
South Dakota	0	12.5	43.8	2.9	40.7	6.2	22.9	56.3	3.9
Tennessee	0	7.0	20.3	3.4	69.4	3.3	19.5	27.2	2.7
Texas	0	6.0	46.1	3.5	44.4	3.4	22.9	52.1	4.6
Utah	0	8.0	30.9	6.0	55.1	5.1	27.4	30.9	2.6
Vermont	0	0.2	55.2	1.6	42.9	2.9	49.0	55.2	2.5
Virginia	0	5.1	43.7	12.3	38.8	3.6	30.6	43.7	2.8
Washington	0	7.2	25.8	6.9	60.1	3.8	28.6	33.0	2.9
West Virginia	0	0	41.5	10.3	48.1	4.3	40.6	41.5	2.1
Wisconsin	0	1.8	54.2	1.8	42.3	2.9	38.9	54.2	4.1
Wyoming	0	8.3	31.8	3.1	56.8	2.5	35.3	40.1	4.0

All States	2.3	5.7	37.6	5.7	48.6	4.1	30.4	39.9	3.4

Source: Congressional Budget Office based on the Bureau of the Census’s survey of state and local government finances.

Note: The Bureau of the Census collects data on local government finances on a state-by-state basis.

Using the share of revenues raised by deductible taxes to measure the benefits that state and local governments receive from the deductibility provision does not account for differences in the percentage of total state income that different governments receive as tax receipts. For example, a state government that collects a larger share of the total income of its residents in taxes receives a larger relative federal subsidy than a state government that has the same share of deductible taxes in its revenue mix but a lower average tax burden. Potentially deductible taxes as a share of state and local governments’ own-source revenues and as a share of the total income of state residents are fairly well correlated (see the last two columns of Tables 2 and 3).¹⁰ That correlation suggests that most of the variation in the subsidy among the states results from differences in the mix of taxes that the governments choose rather than from differences in their overall tax burdens.

Considering the states on a regional basis reveals a few general patterns, whether measuring the subsidy by the potentially deductible share of revenues or by taxpayers’ total income. Both tend to be larger in the Northeastern states. States in the South and Southwest—with the exception of Florida and Texas, when the sales tax is included in potentially deductible taxes—tend to have relatively small subsidized shares by either measure (see Figures 3 and 4).

Source: Congressional Budget Office based on the Bureau of the Census’s survey of state and local government finances.

Note: The five roughly equal categories group states by the percentages of combined state and local (own-source) tax revenues that were potentially deductible in 2004. (Own-source revenues are all those not received from another government or from government-run utilities, liquor stores, or insurance trust funds.)

Source: Congressional Budget Office based on the Bureau of the Census’s survey of state and local government finances.

Note: The five roughly equal categories group states by the percentages of total state personal income that represent potentially deductible taxes.

Yet the potentially deductible share of taxes overstates the actual federal subsidy because all taxes that are eligible for deduction are not actually deducted on individuals’ tax returns. A more accurate measure of the potential subsidy to individual state and local governments would compare the amount of the taxes-paid deductions claimed by the jurisdictions’ residents with the total revenues that were collected from those individuals. One problem with such an approach, though, is that in some cases, taxpayers pay state and local taxes to jurisdictions in which they do not reside. As a result, this type of comparison is unlikely to provide much useful information.

Comparing the share of income, sales, and real estate taxes deducted on a national basis avoids that issue and may shed some additional light on the relative subsidy to certain state and local governments. CBO estimates that in 2004, taxpayers claimed, on schedule A of Form 1040, more than 90 percent of both income and property tax payments that were eligible for deduction under the individual income tax—even though on two-thirds of returns, taxpayers did not itemize deductions. In contrast, of the general sales tax revenues estimated to be eligible for deduction under the federal tax, taxpayers claimed less than 10 percent.¹¹

Several factors in combination probably explain the low ratio of sales taxes deducted to sales taxes paid. First, few states impose sales taxes but not income taxes, so the share of the population for whom the sales tax deduction by default would be preferable to the income tax deduction is relatively small. Second, because sales taxes are less progressive than either income or real estate taxes and the likelihood of claiming the deduction rises with income, fewer taxpayers whose potential sales tax deduction is larger than their potential income tax deduction are likely to itemize. Third, as noted earlier, the amounts in the IRS’s sales tax table may understate the actual amounts that individuals pay, but the cost to document those actual payments may be prohibitive. Finally, in 2004 the sales tax deduction had just been enacted and was temporary, which tended to make people less aware of it.

Distribution of Benefits to Taxpayers. Taxpayers who itemize do so in most cases because the value of their itemized deductions exceeds that of the standard deduction. Individuals who choose to itemize and deduct the state and local taxes they have paid decrease their federal tax liability by approximately the amount of their deductible state and local taxes multiplied by their marginal tax rate under the individual income tax. Because the likelihood of itemizing and the marginal tax rate increase with income, taxpayers who benefit from the taxes-paid deduction in its current form are concentrated in the upper part of the income distribution.

In 2004, slightly less than 35 percent of all taxpayers deducted state and local taxes they had paid, but whether a taxpayer claimed the deduction varied considerably according to his or her income. Approximately 20 percent of taxpayers who had income of less than $75,000 took the deduction, whereas more than 85 percent of taxpayers who had income above $75,000 did so (see Table 4). The latter group, who make up roughly the top 20 percent of filers by income, accounted for just over 70 percent of the value of all state and local tax deductions claimed, with an average of $13,218 in deductible taxes per return claiming the deduction.¹² Within that group, taxpayers who had income between $75,000 and $100,000 were less likely than those whose income was higher to take the deduction, and the amount of the average deduction (before any phaseout) rose steadily with income.

AGI Range (Dollars)		Percentage of All Taxpayers	Percentage of Taxpayers Taking the Taxes-Paid Deduction	Percentage of Total Deductions Claimed	Average Taxes-Paid Deduction per Return Claiming the Deduction (Dollars)	Percentage of Tax Benefits


All Income Categories
	0–10,000	18.5	3.8	0.7	2,647	0
	10,000–20,000	17.6	10.5	1.8	2,665	0.3
	20,000–40,000	24.6	24.7	6.6	3,032	3.4
	40,000–75,000	21.9	53.3	19.8	4,708	15.7
	75,000 or more	17.5	85.3	71.1	13,218	80.6

Highest Income Category
	75,000–100,000	7.7	78.2	14.8	6,779	14.2
	100,000–200,000	7.5	90.1	25.1	10,358	29.5
	200,000–500,000	1.8	94.2	13.6	22,324	13.6
	500,000–1 million	0.3	91.8	5.5	49,952	7.5
	1 million or more	0.2	91.2	12.2	201,899	15.9

Source: Congressional Budget Office based on data from the Internal Revenue Service’s Statistics of Income file.

Although the general limit on itemized deductions, as discussed earlier, restricts the benefit of the taxes-paid deduction for taxpayers whose adjusted gross income is above an indexed threshold ($142,700 for joint filers in 2004), the benefit nevertheless increases with income because of the progressivity of federal income tax rates. (In general, under the current progressive individual income tax, the higher a taxpayer’s income is, the higher will be his or her marginal tax rate and therefore the larger the reduction in federal tax liability gained from deducting an additional dollar of state or local tax.) CBO estimates that in 2004, approximately 80 percent of the tax benefit of the state and local deduction accrued to those whose income was above $75,000 (see Table 4)—about the same proportion as the 78 percent share of total taxes paid by that group. Within that upper portion of the income distribution, taxpayers who had income between $100,000 and $200,000 received just under 30 percent of the total benefit from the deduction, and taxpayers who had income of more than $1 million received slightly less than 16 percent of the benefit.

The standard deduction in the federal individual income tax does not vary by state. Thus, states whose average taxpayer income is high, relative to that in other states, will have more taxpayers whose other itemized deductions (which tend to rise with income) exceed the standard deduction—regardless of variation in the level of taxation among the states. The states in which taxpayers claim a relatively large share of all deductions are states that have large populations; in particular, they are states that have large populations of high-income, itemizing taxpayers. The taxpayers that claim the taxes-paid deduction are concentrated in New England, the Mid-Atlantic region, and the Far West. The South and Southwest have relatively smaller concentrations of such taxpayers—most likely because the largest states in those areas do not levy an income tax.

For taxpayers, one measure of the benefit that the taxes-paid deduction provides is how much the deduction reduces their income that is subject to taxation—specifically, the percentage deduction from AGI. CBO estimated benefits by dividing the total deductions taken by residents of a state by the total AGI in that state, a calculation that allows states with different-sized populations and income to be compared more accurately (see Table 5). Then, for ease of comparison, CBO divided those numbers by the national share of AGI deducted (the share for all states); as Table 5 shows, residents of states that have relative shares above 1 see a larger percentage deduction from AGI than the national average, and residents of states that have relative shares below 1 see a smaller percentage deduction. According to that measure of deductibility, taxpayers in the Mid-Atlantic region, southern New England, and the Far West benefit most from the deduction (see Figure 5), a geographic distribution that corresponds more closely to the distribution of high-income taxpayers among the states (see Figure 6) than to the distribution of states that have high percentages of subsidized taxes.

			Percentage of Taxpayers Who Itemized	Percentage of Total Deductions Claimed	Average Taxes-Paid Deduction per Return Claiming the Deduction (Dollars)	Percentage of AGI Deducted	Ratio of Deduction Share to AGI Share


By State
	Alabama		31.7	0.7	4,039	3.0	0.569
	Alaska		20.8	0.1	3,508	1.6	0.302
	Arizona		37.1	1.3	5,312	4.1	0.760
	Arkansas		25.7	0.4	5,757	3.6	0.672
	California		39.6	17.3	10,292	7.0	1.302
	Colorado		44.8	1.4	5,589	4.5	0.842
	Connecticut		46.0	2.5	12,082	7.3	1.364
	Delaware		29.3	0.2	6,541	3.6	0.677
	District of
		Columbia	44.5	0.4	9,774	7.0	1.299
	Florida		31.4	3.6	5,226	3.1	0.577
	Georgia		38.5	2.6	6,549	5.3	0.983
	Hawaii		38.4	0.4	6,122	4.7	0.870
	Idaho		32.7	0.3	6,122	4.8	0.895
	Illinois		34.8	4.1	7,411	4.8	0.901
	Indiana		30.4	1.4	5,794	3.9	0.721
	Iowa		34.4	0.8	6,387	5.1	0.951
	Kansas		32.5	0.7	7,022	5.0	0.931
	Kentucky		31.2	1.1	6,776	5.1	0.958
	Louisiana		22.2	0.5	4,583	2.6	0.484
	Maine		29.0	0.4	8,008	5.9	1.093
	Maryland		48.3	3.0	8,724	7.1	1.326
	Massachusetts		40.0	3.4	9,958	6.3	1.180
	Michigan		35.4	2.9	6,692	5.0	0.926
	Minnesota		41.4	2.1	7,717	5.9	1.100
	Mississippi		21.6	0.3	4,584	2.8	0.520
	Missouri		33.0	1.5	6,312	4.5	0.845
	Montana		30.3	0.2	5,883	4.7	0.887
	Nebraska		30.3	0.5	7,534	5.2	0.965
	Nevada		40.0	0.6	4,664	3.0	0.569
	New Hampshire		36.4	0.4	6,700	4.3	0.802
	New Jersey		46.7	5.9	11,207	7.9	1.468
	New Mexico		26.2	0.3	5,409	3.5	0.651
	New York		38.4	12.0	13,109	8.3	1.557
	North Carolina		37.0	2.6	6,998	5.6	1.047
	North Dakota		22.6	0.1	4,796	2.7	0.500
	Ohio		34.7	3.8	7,497	5.8	1.083
	Oklahoma		32.1	0.7	5,421	4.2	0.780
	Oregon		42.3	1.5	7,927	7.1	1.322
	Pennsylvania		32.0	3.9	7,686	5.0	0.942
	Rhode Island		38.1	0.5	9,838	7.2	1.337
	South Carolina		29.2	0.9	6,096	4.5	0.834
	South Dakota		15.9	0.1	3,523	1.4	0.267
	Tennessee		24.8	0.7	3,838	2.2	0.402
	Texas		25.3	3.8	5,939	3.1	0.570
	Utah		41.1	0.6	5,447	5.0	0.931
	Vermont		32.1	0.2	8,007	5.6	1.045
	Virginia		41.4	3.0	7,522	5.4	1.007
	Washington		36.5	1.4	5,113	3.2	0.603
	West Virginia		18.2	0.2	5,894	2.9	0.538
	Wisconsin		37.3	2.3	8,547	6.6	1.233
	Wyoming		23.5	0.1	3,653	1.5	0.286

		All States	35.2	100.0	6,767	5.4	1.000

By Census Division
	New England		39.6	7.5	10,054	6.4	1.202
	Middle Atlantic		38.2	21.7	11,177	7.4	1.373
	South Atlantic		36.0	16.7	6,721	4.7	0.883
	East north central		34.6	14.5	7,232	5.2	0.966
	East south central		27.7	2.7	4,784	3.2	0.594
	West north central		34.2	5.8	6,890	5.0	0.932
	West south central		25.7	5.5	5,692	3.2	0.589
	Mountain		37.8	4.9	5,366	4.1	0.759
	Pacific		39.1	20.7	9,275	6.4	1.186

Source: Congressional Budget Office based on data from the Internal Revenue Service’s Statistics of Income file.

Notes: The taxes-paid deduction allows taxpayers to deduct from their adjusted gross income some of the taxes they pay to state and local governments, including income or sales, real estate, and other taxes. The provision allowing sales taxes to be deducted expired at the end of 2007.

Source: Congressional Budget Office based on data from the Internal Revenue Service’s Statistics of Income file.

Note: The five roughly equal categories are based on the relative share, which is calculated by dividing the percentage deduction from AGI that state and local tax deductibility provides for taxpayers in each state by the national average.

Source: Congressional Budget Office based on data from the Internal Revenue Service’s Statistics of Income file.

Note: The five roughly equal categories group states by the percentages of taxpayers in the top 20 percent of the adjusted gross income distribution.

The interaction between the presence of high-income taxpayers and state and local tax burdens also influences how the benefits from the taxes-paid deduction are distributed among the states. Although taxpayers in states that have a large percentage deduction from AGI tend to claim larger deductions at all income levels than do taxpayers in states that have a small deduction share, the ratio increases as income rises. That is, the difference between the claimed deductions of taxpayers in large-share states and small-share states is greatest for the highest-income taxpayers. That finding implies that the benefits from deductibility are more closely related to the progressivity of state and local taxes than to their average level.

CBO analyzed several alternatives that would change the way the federal individual income tax treats the taxes paid to state and local governments: eliminating the taxes-paid deduction, setting a ceiling for the deduction at 2 percent of adjusted gross income, capping the allowable deduction at an indexed dollar amount, replacing the deduction with a nonrefundable tax credit for 15 percent of the state and local taxes paid, and eliminating the deductibility of all taxes except those on real estate.¹³ Each option, if implemented, could cause state and local governments to change their tax structures in different ways and also affect taxpayers’ filing behavior (for example, whether or not people itemize). In addition, all of the alternatives would substantially increase federal revenues during the 2008–2017 period. For most of the options (all except the credit), total revenues would still increase if the options were combined with changes that would limit the alternative minimum tax.

For each option that CBO analyzed, the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated the total effect, on a fiscal year basis, that the alternative would have on the federal budget. The estimates incorporate a full set of assumptions about the ways both taxpayers and governments might respond to the changes, including timing effects (revenues would be received at varying points after a change in law). All changes would be effective for calendar years that began after December 31, 2007. However, changes in tax rules are scheduled to occur within the next 10 years, including the expiration after 2010 of many of the tax provisions enacted in 2001 and 2003. As a result, JCT’s estimates necessarily combine tax receipts collected under different tax regimes in fiscal years that bracket the changes in law that occur at the end of a calendar year.

The estimates discussed in this section incorporate the assumption that the exemption amounts for the AMT revert to their 2000 levels in tax year 2008 and remain there, as specified in current law. Under that assumption, approximately 30 million taxpayers would be subject to the AMT in 2010, CBO estimates.

Eliminate the Deduction of All State and Local Taxes. Of the five options, completely eliminating the deduction, which was recommended by the President’s Tax Reform Panel, would generate the biggest rise in federal revenues. This alternative would also simplify the most returns (because more people would use the standard deduction) and would eliminate any subsidy-related effects on state and local governments’ choices between different kinds of taxes that affect individuals.

If policymakers eliminated deductibility for all state and local taxes paid, revenues would rise by an estimated $50 billion in fiscal year 2009 (see Table 6). The general limit on itemized deductions applies from 2011 onward under current law; however, the effects of the rise in marginal rates and other changes set to take place in that year with the expiration of EGTRRA would override the provision’s effects and increase the revenue gain associated with eliminating the taxes-paid deduction. In 2012, that gain would rise to $93 billion. Over the 2008–2017 period, eliminating deductibility would increase revenues by an estimated $748 billion.

	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	Total, 2008- 2017


Eliminate the Taxes-Paid Deduction	12.9	50.4	46.3	58.0	92.9	94.1	96.0	97.9	99.1	100.3	747.9

Limit the Deduction to 2 Percent of Adjusted Gross Income	9.0	34.7	31.0	39.8	67.5	67.8	68.9	70.0	70.6	71.1	530.2

Restrict the Deduction to Real Estate Taxes	8.4	32.5	29.1	36.4	57.4	57.9	59.0	60.2	61.2	62.2	464.4

Cap the Deduction at $5,000 in 2008and Index It Thereafter	7.3	28.2	26.1	33.9	55.3	55.9	57.1	58.2	59.3	60.3	441.6

Replace the Deduction with a 15 Percent Credit of Currently Deductible Taxes	1.1	3.9	2.8	8.2	22.3	23.1	24.2	25.4	26.5	27.4	165.0

Notes: JCT measured all effects of the options against the Congressional Budget Office’s baseline projections for fiscal years 2008 to 2017.

The taxes-paid deduction allows taxpayers to deduct from their adjusted gross income some of the taxes they pay to state and local governments, including income or sales, real estate, and other taxes. The provision allowing sales taxes to be deducted expired at the end of 2007.

Limit the Deduction With a Ceiling on Adjusted Gross Income or a Cap on the Amount That Can Be Deducted. These options would continue to provide some amount of subsidy for state and local governments and so would produce less of a boost in revenues for the federal government compared with the elimination alternative. The AGI ceiling and the cap would substantially weaken the incentive of state and local governments to continue to use deductible taxes once taxpayers’ liability exceeds those limits. Because average AGI varies by state, an AGI ceiling would subsidize states that had higher average income relatively more than would a cap on the deductible amount. Also, if high state and local taxes reflected a higher price for providing public goods rather than a preference for a particular amount of public consumption, then tying the amount of the deduction to a percentage of AGI would allow a larger subsidy for states and localities that had higher costs. Among taxpayers, the AGI ceiling would give higher-income filers a larger deduction and would preserve the support that the subsidy currently provides to more-progressive state and local taxes.

Capping the deduction at a specific dollar value that was then indexed for inflation would eliminate some of the variation in the use of the deduction by taxpayers in different states. A cap would affect more taxpayers in high-income and high-tax states than in states whose average income and tax burden were lower. Among taxpayers, the decrease in the benefit that deductibility provides would be greatest under a cap for those who could claim the largest deductions under the current system.

Restrictions on deductibility would have a commensurately smaller impact on federal revenues than would the elimination option. In 2009, limiting the deduction to 2 percent of AGI or implementing an indexed $5,000 cap would boost revenues by $35 billion or $28 billion, respectively. As with the elimination alternative, the increase in revenues associated with those options would rise in 2012. In that year, limiting the deduction to 2 percent of AGI would add $68 billion to revenues; capping the dollar amount would add $55 billion.

Replace the Deduction with a Credit. A tax credit—for example, 15 percent of the taxes an individual pays that are deductible under current law—would preserve some federal subsidy for those taxes and therefore the incentive for states and localities to use them. The subsidy to state and local spending would continue to flow indirectly through the taxpayers that finance that spending but at a rate—the rate of the credit—that would not depend on what their marginal tax rate was or whether they itemized. For a taxpayer who did not itemize but had federal tax liability, the cost of an additional dollar of state or local government spending that was financed through creditable taxes would be roughly $1 minus the credit rate (or $1 minus 15 percent = 85 cents), compared with $1 under the current taxes-paid deduction. For an itemizing taxpayer with federal tax liability, the cost of an additional dollar of spending through creditable taxes would also be $1 minus the rate of the credit (rather than $1 minus the taxpayer’s marginal tax rate, as is the case now).

Replacing the current deduction with a nonrefundable credit for 15 percent of taxes paid would generate the smallest federal revenue gain of all the options that CBO considered—$4 billion in 2009, rising to $22 billion in 2012.

Restrict the Deduction to Real Estate Taxes. This alternative would strengthen state and local governments’ incentives to raise revenue from real estate taxes rather than from other types of taxes. Any change in law that eliminated deductibility for some taxes but left it in place for others would encourage state and local governments to alter their mix of taxes in response. However, if those governments did not respond to the changed incentives, continuing the real estate tax deduction and eliminating the others would cut the federal subsidy to state governments by much more than it would cut the federal subsidy to local governments. Real estate taxes are more likely than other types of subsidized taxes to correspond to localized differences in benefits, affecting, for example, the quality of schools, which varies by school district. As a result, the taxes-paid deduction under this option would probably subsidize services that had few spillover benefits to other areas.

The preceding estimates incorporate the assumptions that current law continues to govern the AMT and a growing number of taxpayers become subject to that tax. In recent years, policymakers have enacted several laws, on a one- or two-year basis, to prevent such a rise in numbers. Because one of the largest tax preferences that the AMT eliminates is the deduction for state and local taxes, future legislative action that affected the AMT would have a substantial impact on the revenues to be gained from changes to the taxes-paid deduction. In particular, the fewer taxpayers that are subject to the AMT, the greater the impact on revenues of the taxes-paid deduction.

Interactive Effects of Combining the Elimination Alternative with a Change in the AMT. As one way to stop the continuing increase in the number of taxpayers subject to the AMT, policymakers could permanently boost the AMT’s exemption and tax brackets and index them for inflation. By itself, indexation of the exemption and brackets from their 2006 levels would reduce revenues, relative to current law, by an estimated $586 billion over the 2008–2017 period. If such a change was combined with the elimination of the taxes-paid deduction, the gain in revenues from eliminating the deduction would more than offset the loss in revenues from indexing the AMT, resulting in a net revenue gain of $447 billion from 2008 to 2017.

In 2009, the first full fiscal year under the combined changes, the fall in revenues from the AMT would offset much of the increase from eliminating the state and local deduction, JCT estimates, leading to a rise in total revenues of $15 billion (see Table 7). In 2010, the year in which AMT revenues are projected to peak under current law, the revenues that would be lost if the AMT was indexed and the revenues that would be gained if the taxes-paid deduction was eliminated would combine for a relatively small change to revenues overall. In 2012, the first full year after the various tax provisions expire, the effect on revenues from the AMT’s indexation would be substantially smaller (because more taxpayers would be subject to the ordinary income tax). Thus, the increase in revenues from eliminating the state and local tax deduction would be only partially offset by the AMT’s indexation, generating a projected revenue gain of just under $76 billion.

		2007	2008


Direct Grants^a		443.8	466.6

Tax Expenditures
	Taxes-Paid Deduction^b	50.7	43.9

	Tax-Exempt Bonds	36.5	39.3

Effects of Indexing the AMT		2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	Total, 2008- 2017


Without Options		-23.2	-62.4	-73.7	-62.7	-38.3	-46.1	-54.4	-63.6	-74.7	-87.1	-586.2

With Options
	Eliminate the taxes-paid deduction	-3.6	15.1	1.3	23.0	75.9	73.1	71.2	68.5	64.0	58.2	446.7