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States redistribute wealth through two mechanisms: spending and taxation. Yet studies of the social determinants of redistribution typically focus exclusively on government spending. This article explores how one determinant of social spending—racial composition—influences preferences for, and the structure of, tax systems. First, analyses of state and local tax burden data indicate that an increasing proportion of Latinos within states is associated with more regressive tax systems. Second, evidence from a nationally representative survey experiment suggests that individual preferences for taxation may be influenced by changes in the racial composition of communities. Finally, analyses reveal that in-group solidarity is a key mechanism through which racial threat shapes preferences for taxation. In demonstrating a relationship between racial change, tax preferences, and tax structures, this article contributes to our under-standing of the determinants of redistribution as well as the broader project of the new fiscal sociology.

AbstractThis article examines the social correlates of US state income tax policy-making between 1980 and 2008. We focus on the three factors the existing research suggests that are relevant to redistributive policy-making: income structure, left power resources and racial composition. We employ a holistic measure of state income taxation—the dollar-weighted average marginal tax rate—that captures both the overall level of taxation as well as the distribution of tax incidence, key determinants of the redistributive effect of income tax policy. Our analyses examine within-state changes over time as estimated using both actual and fixed income distributions, which enables us to isolate real changes in tax policy from shifts in the income distribution. We find evidence that increases in the percentages of Black and Hispanic residents are associated with a decrease in average marginal tax rate on wage income. We situate these findings within the broader literature on the social determinants of redistributive policy-making.

This book looks at the way we tax the poor in the United States, particularly in the American South, where poor families are often subject to income taxes, and where regressive sales taxes apply even to food for home consumption. Katherine S. Newman and Rourke L. O'Brien argue that these policies contribute in unrecognized ways to poverty-related problems like obesity, early mortality, the high school dropout rates, teen pregnancy, and crime. They show how, decades before California's passage of Proposition 13, many southern states implemented legislation that makes it almost impossible to raise property or corporate taxes, a pattern now growing in the western states. Taxing the Poor demonstrates how sales taxes intended to replace the missing revenue--taxes that at first glance appear fair--actually punish the poor and exacerbate the very conditions that drove them into poverty in the first place.

Abstract
This article introduces fiscal impoverishment as a framework for comparative poverty research. We invert standard analyses of welfare state policy and household poverty by focusing not on poverty alleviation but poverty creation and exacerbation. Using harmonized household survey data, we show how the income and payroll taxes most rich countries rely on to finance the public sector serve to push households (further) into poverty. We estimate that across rich democracies on average about one in four households in poverty are made poorer on net after taxes and transfers; with fiscal impoverishment levels ranging from <10% in some countries to more than 70% in others, revealing extreme cross-national variation in how the pocketbooks of poor households are impacted by national tax and transfer policy. We go on to show that fiscal impoverishment does not track with standard measures of welfare state generosity but is instead largely determined by design of income tax systems, particularly a country's relative reliance on (regressive) payroll taxes versus (progressive) income taxes. We consider the implications of fiscal impoverishment for assessing welfare state performance and for comparative poverty research.

This book looks at the way we tax the poor in the United States, particularly in the American South, where poor families are often subject to income taxes, and where regressive sales taxes apply even to food for home consumption. Katherine S. Newman and Rourke L. O'Brien argue that these policies contribute in unrecognized ways to poverty-related problems like obesity, early mortality, the high school dropout rates, teen pregnancy, and crime. They show how, decades before California's passage of Proposition 13, many southern states implemented legislation that makes it almost impossible to raise property or corporate taxes, a pattern now growing in the western states. Taxing the Poor demonstrates how sales taxes intended to replace the missing revenue -- taxes that at first glance appear fair -- actually punish the poor and exacerbate the very conditions that drove them into poverty in the first place.