Federal Tax Act Pass-Through Provision: What a Mess!

by | Mar 19, 2018

Tax laws should be simple and direct. Taxpayers should be able to understand and comply with them without the assistance of an army of attorneys and accountants. The treatment of pass-through income in the new federal tax law passed late last year—the so-called “Tax...

2018 Local Government Aid Funding in Perspective

by | Mar 13, 2018

Local Government Aid (LGA) has long been an important source of funding for city services and property tax relief. A 2018 LGA funding hike provided valuable new resources to cities, but not quite enough to keep pace with inflation and population growth from 2017 to...

Time to Raise the Renewable Portfolio Standard?

by | Mar 13, 2018

Minnesota’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS)—sometimes called a Renewable Energy Standard (RES)—was last updated in 2007. Most utilities have met it ahead of schedule. All but twelve states have some sort of RPS, twenty-nine of which are mandatory. Is it time for an...

Growth in Homestead Share of School Property Taxes

by | Mar 9, 2018

School property taxes fell significantly from 2001 to 2002.* But that relief eroded over time, as noted in part 1 of this series; homeowners have been particularly hard hit. The growth in homeowners’ share of the school property tax bill is not the result of real...