According to a new Goldwater Institute policy report eliminating Arizona’s state income tax could put 20,000 people to work in the first year alone and business activity in the state could rise by an additional $419 million each year. The report, A New Tax Plan for a New Economy: How Eliminating the Income Tax Can Create Jobs, was released Thursday.
In the report, Goldwater Institute Senior Economist Stephen Slivinski argues that the income tax makes Arizona less attractive than its neighboring states when companies want to expand and create new jobs. Slivinski recommends that lawmakers eliminate the income tax outright and shift to a broad-based sales tax.
“We are falling behind neighboring states in economic recovery, and just tweaking Arizona’s tax code around the edges will not bring about the long-term job growth that we need,” said Slivinski. “Eliminating the income tax is the only proposal bold enough to dramatically boost new economic growth and drive widespread job creation.”
Arizona’s tax structure is outdated, weighing the state down and getting in the way of long-term economic and job growth. Arizona lost nearly 300,000 jobs during the recession and has an unemployment rate of 8.3 percent, among the highest in the nation, argues Slivinski.
According to Slivinski, eliminating the state income tax would make Arizona more attractive to companies who want to expand. When job-creators can keep more of their earnings to reinvest in their businesses, they are more likely to expand and hire new workers. Under this tax plan, Arizona workers will enjoy not only more opportunities to find work, they will also keep more of the money they earn.
National economic data shows that states without an income tax see substantially stronger economic growth than the national average and states with income taxes. In Texas, for example, where there is no income tax, the state gained over 400,000 new jobs between May of 2007 and May of 2012, and the state has regained all the jobs that it lost during the recession.
Besides creating jobs and letting families keep more of their paychecks, eliminating the income tax will also help stabilize the state budget. Having a budget dependent on income taxes make state revenues more vulnerable to economic ups and downs, according to Slivinski. Income taxes make up nearly half of all state revenues and they are much more volatile than sales taxes. During a boom period in the economy, as incomes spike, so too does tax revenue, which allows for large increases in government spending. But when a recession hits and incomes dive, so too do tax collections and there is a big reduction in state revenues. This was a major cause of the most recent budget deficits and sent policymakers scrambling to cover the new spending they took on during the boom period.
In his report, Slivinski shows how to eliminate the income tax, keep the sales tax at the rate it is now, and still bring in the same amount of government revenue we see today. The report also recommends reforms to maximize this tax plan’s effectiveness, including unifying the sales tax base statewide and creating a constitutional amendment to stop state and local governments from creating an income tax in the future.
“By taking steps to eliminate the income tax, Arizona will signal to job-creators around the country that we are open for business and committed to making our state competitive,” said Slivinski. “The faster a plan to eliminate the income tax is enacted, the stronger the economic boost our state will receive.”