Jared Walczak is Vice President of State Projects at the Tax Foundation. He is the lead researcher on the annual State Business Tax Climate Index and Location Matters, and has authored or coauthored tax reform guides on Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Jared’s work is regularly cited in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Politico, AP, and many other prominent national and state outlets.
He previously served as legislative director to a member of the Senate of Virginia and as policy director for a statewide campaign, and consulted on research and policy development for a number of candidates and elected officials. In his free time, Jared enjoys hiking and has a goal of visiting all 63 national parks.
The State Tax Competitiveness Index enables policymakers, taxpayers, and business leaders to gauge how their states’ tax systems compare. While there are many ways to show how much state governments collect in taxes, the Index evaluates how well states structure their tax systems and provides a road map for improvement.
122 min read
Taxes are an important part of the mix, and modernizing a state’s tax structure helps position it for growth. States that rank better on the Index have better-structured tax codes, and states with better-structured tax codes get Wins Above Replacement.
5 min read
Illinois lawmakers are attempting to rush through a harmful mark-to-market capital gains tax proposal that captures unrealized gains.
7 min read
The past four years have brought significant focus on state income tax reform and relief, and with that, something of a flat tax revolution.
11 min read
With property tax bills on the rise, homeowners are searching for answers—and some even want to abolish the tax altogether. In this episode, we break down why property taxes are increasing, common but flawed solutions, and why the property tax remains an economically efficient revenue source.
Backfilling forgone local property tax revenue through new state taxes is difficult because it dramatically shifts overall tax burdens, undermines local accountability, and cannot easily adjust for changing population mixes.
20 min read
When the Kansas City and Los Angeles squads face off in São Paulo, the players will owe Brazil’s nonresident income tax on the share of income they earned there, while California will lose out on the nonresident income taxes that Chiefs players ordinarily would have remitted in what is nominally a Chargers home game.
5 min read
Congress may have passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), but state lawmakers now face big choices. Most states link their tax codes to the federal system, meaning OBBBA’s provisions—good and bad—are about to ripple across state budgets.
For Congress, work on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is done. But in state capitols, the work has not yet begun. Many of the tax changes in the federal reconciliation act flow through to state tax codes—automatically in some states, and subject to an update in states’ Internal Revenue Code conformity date in others.
39 min read
However states choose to respond to other tax provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, they should conform to the pro-growth provisions, which represent a marked improvement in the corporate tax code.
12 min read
The One Big Beautiful Bill’s changes to the taxation of international income have surprising implications for state codes, yielding tax increases and a revised tax base that, through quirks of state incorporation, bears very little resemblance to the federal base and almost nothing of its purpose.
10 min read
Retail sales taxes are an essential part of most states’ revenue toolkits, responsible for 24 percent of combined state and local tax collections.
17 min read
The Senate’s version of the OBBB restores the benefit of avoiding the SALT deduction cap with PTETs for all pass-through businesses, while placing new limits on the extent of the workarounds.
6 min read
For owners of pass-through businesses, the reconciliation package (1) raises the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap, (2) denies the benefit of pass-through entity-level taxes that had previously worked around the SALT cap for such pass-through businesses, and (3) increases the Section 199A deduction for qualifying pass-through entities.
4 min read
As the US House hashes out its “One, Big, Beautiful Bill,” statehouse lawmakers are watching closely, given the impact of both its tax and spending provisions on state budgets.
12 min read
In Washington, Gov. Ferguson (D) will soon have to act on legislation enacting a far more sweeping tax on Washington-based businesses than lawmakers imagined.
7 min read
The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) only succeeds in demonstrating that America has more millionaires than it used to, not that high-tax states are doing well in attracting or retaining them.
7 min read
The proposed changes to federal tax code conformity in Oregon are a good example of a change that could significantly reshape the state’s tax code in the future, despite being framed as temporary technical adjustments.
4 min read
With a wealth tax, property tax increases, and this new payroll tax on the agenda, Washington lawmakers have reason to fear that many employers could be looking for the exits.
5 min read
Maryland’s proposed budget has garnered headlines for many reasons, but another momentous change is flying under the radar: backdoor adoption of potentially mandatory worldwide combined reporting.
6 min read