Progressive and regressive taxes have an impact on funding for programs in our society, including education. The differences between the two provide for a very controversial view of how school districts plan budgets. Real estate taxes, earned income and personal income taxes, sales tax, and lottery revenue are factors that make up these differences. Progressive taxes increase as taxable base amounts increase. Progressive taxes have an effect on income and expenditures. The U.S. federal income is an example of progressive tax because the higher income a person has, the higher the tax bracket rate. This affects the rich. The higher their income the more they have to pay in taxes (Wikipedia) Regressive taxes are the opposite of progressive taxes; regressive taxes that takes a larger percentage from low-income people than from high-income people. A regressive tax is generally a tax that is applied uniformly. This means that it hits lower-income individuals harder. Some examples include gas tax and cigarette tax. For example, if a person has $10 of their income and must pay $1 of tax on a package of cigarettes, this represents 10% of the person's income. However, if the person has $20 of income, this $1 tax only represents 5% of that person's income (Investopedia). People are charged many types of taxes, which some are progressive and some are regressive such as property or real estate taxes. The property tax is based on the value of the property, and it is a regressive tax (Combs, 2010). Most of the revenue from this tax is used toward education in the state of Texas, and it is collected annually. Residential and Commercial properties are taxed. Second, there is the sales tax. In Texas, the state charges a sales tax of 6.25%, is... ... middle of paper ... ...t of Fort Bend in southeast Texas, the property tax is $1.30 per taxable asset value. This revenue makes up 52% of the budget for the district (Fort Bend ISD, 2010). A loss of even a little property tax revenue would hurt the district’s budget and affect the loss of many teaching jobs. Works Cited Fort Bend ISD Financial Budget. (2010, March 17). Retrieved from http://www.fortbendisd.com/finance/documents/2010_11%20Budget.pdf Garner, C.W. (2004). Education Finance for School Leaders: Strategic Planning and Administration. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc. Kokernak, Louis. (2010). The Growth of Regressive Taxes. Retrieved from http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Growth-of-Regressive-Taxes&id=3811425 Texas Lottery Supporting Education. (2010, March 17). Retrieved from http://www.txlottery.org/export/sites/default/Supporting_Education/
According to the data obtain from the United States Census Bureau; the state of Texas received the amount of $ 24,500,909 in sales tax revenue in the year 2012, Tennessee $6,512,352, and Utah $1,857,055. The sale tax in Texas percentage is “6.25 % to 8.25% depending on the local cities; Tennessee charges “7%, but the number can vary from 1% to 2.75 %”; Utah is “4.70% to 7.95%. Texas population is approximately 26,06 million; Utah 2,855 million, and Tennessee is 6,456 million by 2012; These numbers show that the state of Texas is bigger in size and population than Tennessee and Utah; however the sales taxes revenue is lower han Tennessee, but higher than Utah’s.
Seeing as though San Antonio’s education funding is based on property value, poorer districts obviously receive less funding. However, the poor districts are required to pay the same tax rate that the wealthier districts pay but are unable to properly fund their schools whereas the wealthier districts are comfortably able to fund their schools and are much less affected by the tax rate compared to their lower-income counterparts.
The “Fairness of Taxation or Wealth Tax” is where taxes are calculated by the net worth of the person or the couple (household). This would be hard for tax collectors to determine each and every component of net worth of a person.
Roy, Joydeep. "Impact of School Finance Reform on Resource Equalization and Academic Performace: Evidence from Michigan." Mitpress Journels, 2003: 1-31.
In the United States, there are many different types of taxes. Some of them are goods and services, income, and property taxes (debt.org). The two most common taxes are the Flat Tax and the Fair Tax. Basically, Flax Tax is one income tax rate that everyone has to pay. Fair Tax is a proposal amendment to tax laws that removes the federal and state income taxes and replace it with a federal retail sale tax (Investorwords.com). Our current tax income system that we use is called Progressive Tax which is the tax system that takes a larger percentage from those who earn a higher income than those who earn a lower income (Investopedia.com). Out of all those taxes, the best one that I believe that can replace our current tax system is the Flat Tax because research has shown that it can be very beneficial for our economy today.
To reiterate, the current tax system is thought to be regressive because the tax system does not provide a balance for those with high income and those with low; however, this can be fixed by adopting some aspects of a state with progressive features. For instance, the state of California as a much better tax system than Texas because they have a “graduated personal income tax structure and provides personal income tax credits in place of personal and dependent exemptions” (“California”). If Texas adopted these two characteristics into their tax system this will began to progress because some of the faults in the present Texas tax system is the lack of personal income tax structure and it does not not provide tax credits to low-income taxpayers to offset other expenses. Making these few changes will help Texas greatly; however, making this change will be difficult because the state is comfortable with the tax system they have. Texas does not care to alter the tax system much because although it is weak, it does not take too much away from the overall economic success the state
(TRANSITION: But before we get into all of that, the questions I asked you for my audience analysis revealed that not all of you are as riveted by tax policy as I am-shocking I know-, so I will clarify some of the jargon I will be using. First the progressive tax is a tax system where the tax rates increase with income earned. Let’s say the first tax bracket is set at 50,000 dollars, and the first tax rate is set at ten percent, and the rate above it is set at twenty percent. So, if you make 70,000 dollars, the first 50,000 will be taxed
Introduction: In the year 1862 during the civil war congress implemented the first income tax in America. It was 3% per year. However, it was not until 1913 when the 16th Amendment to the Constitution was passed, which granted the government the ability to impose a tax on individuals’ income. Since then it has been an issue to determine how much people should be taxed. Tax rates in America change drastically; for example, in 1963 a person in the highest tax bracket would give 90.8% of their income to the government. In contrast, that same person would only pay 28.0% in 1988. The tax rate for income tax is an issue because for every dime that someone pays in taxes is one dime that they are not able to spend themselves. Additionally, people
On November 3 of this year, Texans will have the opportunity to vote on several proposed amendments to the Texas constitution. The first of these, Proposition 1, proposes to increase the homestead exemption available to property owners from $15,000 to 25,000. Supporters of the measure claim the amendment would provide much needed tax relief for Texans across the state, among other benefits. On the other hand, opponents of the measure argue that this proposed amendment would alienate Texans who don't own property, in addition to other complaints. Is this amendment a good or bad idea? This essay will attempt to shed some light on the matter by analyzing the arguments for an against the amendment. I'll also argue
The funding of public education has long been an issue for the state government of Texas. Starting before Texas was even a state, public education funding was at the forefront of politicians’ minds. In 1836, one of the reasons Anglo-Texans wanted to become independent from Mexico was Mexico’s lack of a public school system (An Overview of the History of Public Education in Texas, 2016). This drove the desire of President Mirabeau B. Lamar of the Republic of Texas to create legislation that would grant public schools land (A Brief History of Public Education, n.d.). This act set aside four leagues of land per county for the use of free education centers and thus began the funding of public education by the state government (An Overview of the History of Public Education in Texas, 2016). In the last 177 years, the Texas Legislature and the Texas Education Agency have created numerous acts and laws regarding the funding of education, but it has been in the last 50 years that this topic has become highly contested, resulting in several lawsuits and endless efforts (by the school districts) to equalize the distribution of funds to Texas school districts (Texas School Finance History, n.d.). In sum, the complex issues and policies that surround the funding of public education are derived from a combination of the legislature, bureaucratic agencies, and local governments in the form of school districts.
In a progressive system of taxation, there is a greater portion of personal income that gets taxed at certain income levels. Someone making $25k per year, for example, may have a 10% tax rate on this income. Someone earning $50k per year would pay 10% taxes on the first $25k they earned, but then 15% on the remainder of the amount. In the United States, the top tax rate typically hovers around 35%.
Then comes the education part, where according to the author Jonathan Kozol in his book Savage Inequalities Children in America’s schools, property tax is one of the main financial distributions that goes towards local schools. In Kozol’s book he quotes that, “typically in the United States, very poor communities place high priority on education, and they often tax themselves at higher rates than do the very affluent communities.
Local governments rely on property tax as a source of revenue to pay for school. Yet people in the urban areas pay the higher tax than suburban and wealthy communities, states on the other hand, relies on The Average Daily Attendance (ADA), which calculates state aid to school districts, tends to discriminate against urban school districts with high absentee rates by automatically, and excludes 15 percent of its student aid. Therefore, in many urban areas, the state ratio of funding remains significantly lower than 50 percent out of the tree entities the federal government allocates the least amount of funding. Residents in these areas who are under edu...
There is less state funding for local community, educational, and healthcare programs. “Texas has no income tax and no state property tax, so our schools depend heavily on local property taxes”( 2nd work c). Since this is the main way to fund these programs local property taxes are higher. This affects children who attend Texas’ public schools, a state income tax makes it easier to gather money to fund children's public
Regardless of the school, public or private, finances play a major role in its survival. While school districts and schools struggle to survive amid the ongoing and strenuous standards for success, provisions must still be made to ensure that these entities are financially sound (Hall, 2006). The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the ramifications of school finance litigation and practice in the state of Florida. In addition, this paper will be used to research the historical evolution of educational finance and explain the most significant paradigm shifts that have taken place in Florida. Finally, this paper will be designed to evaluate the ways current financial decisions resulting from recent litigation have shaped the educational environment and its outcomes. For this purpose, recent litigation and events in Florida will be used to support these claims.