Local Income Taxes

Archive Report

Push Toward Municipal Income Levies

Laboring under an ever-increasing burden of expenditure and debt, many American cities are now looking to the local income tax as a promising avenue of relief. While such taxes, variously known as earnings, wage or payroll taxes, are currently in use in only eight of the country's 41 largest cities, they are being considered for earlier or later adoption in many others, large and small. One authority in the field has described the tax on income as potentially “one of the most important local taxes of the future.” 1

City finance officers take a more favorable view of the municipal income tax than do the voters. Recent referenda in Cleveland, Denver and Kansas City have all gone against the tax. Cleveland ...

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