Tag: Connecticut taxes

Report Finds Connecticut Still Has the Second-Highest State and Local Tax Burden

Bradley Vasoli

According to recent data from the center-right Tax Foundation, Connecticut taxpayers continue to shoulder nearly the highest revenue burdens of anyone in the U.S.

As stated in a report titled “State and Local Tax Burdens, Calendar Year 2022,” the average state resident paid 15.5 percent in combined state and local taxes last year. That places Connecticut in second among all states in that category, second only to New York which claims 15.9 percent of residents’ annual earnings on average. Neighboring Massachusetts and Rhode Island both have tax onuses under 12 percent, hovering around the national mean.

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Dueling Economic Narratives: Connecticut Dems Vaunt Higher Credit Rating; GOP Cites Poll Showing Residents Unhappy with Economy

Bradley Vasoli

While Democratic officials met news of Connecticut’s boosted credit rating effusively on Tuesday, Republicans drew attention to new survey results showing on-the-ground feelings about the economy overall aren’t so rosy.

Standard & Poor’s (S&P), a major New York City-based credit-rating agency, assigned the state’s general-obligation bonds a “positive” outlook; before the rating was merely “stable.” S&P attributed its upgrade to the state projecting it will accumulate a $3.31-billion fund balance in the next fiscal year, amounting to 15 percent of appropriations.

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Nearly 3,000 State Workers in Connecticut Had Salaries Exceeding the Governor’s in 2021

Bradley Vasoli

A review of Connecticut’s salary records published by the center-right Yankee Institute (YI) Thursday indicated that 2,927 state employees received higher salaries than the governor in 2021.

State statute confers a $150,000 yearly salary on Gov. Ned Lamont (D). Approximately 2,000 state employees earned higher pay than him through 2017. Over the next three years, that number rose by nearly 1,000.

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Connecticut Fiscal Conservatives Warn Against SEBAC Contracts

Bradley Vasoli

The Yankee Institute (YI), Connecticut’s premier economically conservative think tank, is exhorting state lawmakers to reject contracts that the Lamont administration negotiated with the State Employee Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC).

YI began warning against the eventual fiscal consequences of the agreements after the public-employee labor coalition started publicizing their major features in mid-March. Later that month, the SEBAC’s 15 unions approved the agreements and, on April 1, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) requested that the Democrat-controlled General Assembly ratify the deals, characterizing them as “responsible and fair.”

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Lawmakers Call for Challenge to ARPA Rules Limiting Connecticut Tax Reduction

Bradley Vasoli
Ned Lamont

Connecticut Republican legislators said on Saturday they want the state to challenge a part of the American Rescue Plan Act which limits states’ ability to cut taxes.

GOP senators and representatives are calling for tax reduction beyond the targeted relief backed by Gov. Ned Lamont (D). A major roadblock to greater decreases will be the COVID-relief bill President Joe Biden signed into law last year. The act included $195.3 billion in recovery funds for states and barred states accepting allocations from using them to “directly or indirectly offset a reduction in net tax revenue… or delay the imposition of any tax or tax increase.”

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Bill Would Give Legislators Access to Connecticut Residents’ Tax Returns

Bradley Vasoli
Kate Farrar, Michael Winkler rand Josh Elliot

Connecticut leftists are promoting legislation that would let lawmakers request and receive copies of any residents’ tax return.

Advocates for the bill are basing their case on “fairness and equality,” insisting that access to individuals’ financial information will help them improve tax policy from a progressive standpoint, i.e. claim more revenue from higher-income earners.

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