Some Cities Turning to Local Income Taxes for Revenue

Von Ins, Tracy, Nation's Cities Weekly

One in an occasional series of articles appearing in The Weekly on municipal finance and the work of NLC's Future of Public Finance Initiative.

Property and sales taxes are familiar revenue sources for many local governments. In the last 20 years, more localities are choosing a less common option -- local taxes on income.

By 1997, localities in 15 states had been authorized to levy income taxes. Four of these states -- Colorado, Delaware, New York and Washington -- restrict (enumerate) the income tax to specific municipalities. Some larger cities, including Baltimore, New York City, St. Louis, and Kansas City, Mo., have also been granted additional authority from their state legislatures to levy local incomes taxes.

Two Types of Income Tax

Two types of income tax are levied by localities. The most common type is a graduated tax on …

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Publication information: Article title: Some Cities Turning to Local Income Taxes for Revenue. Contributors: Von Ins, Tracy - Author. Magazine title: Nation's Cities Weekly. Volume: 24. Issue: 27 Publication date: July 9, 2001. Page number: 1. © 2009 National League of Cities. COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group.

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