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March 20, 2024 at 04:02 PM
Much noise has been made about wealth tax bills in the states and at the federal level. But most of the 2024 state tax bills look less like attacks on billionaires and more like efforts to help ordinary investors become the millionaires next door.
We scoured state legislation databases for tax bills, and closely related bills, aimed at high-income and high-asset taxpayers, and we found strong support for wealth-builders and wealth-keepers.
Trends in Taxing the Wealthy
In a few states, lawmakers are still trying to add special income tax brackets for ultra-high-income residents and to increase estate taxes or inheritance taxes for families with very big estates.
But most of those bills are stuck in committee and have not moved an inch.
More lawmakers are trying to reduce or eliminate estate taxes, cut income taxes and provide tax relief for residents who invest money in assets such as oil wells, gold bullion or cryptocurrency, and some of those bills are becoming law.
For a look at the state of wealth tax legislation in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, see the list and table below.
The Wealth Tax Push
At the federal level, some members of Congress may point to increasing taxes on “the top 1%,” millionaires or billionaires as the key to strengthening the government’s financial position.
But, at the state level, lawmakers generally seem to be more interested in helping people get and stay rich than in squeezing a lot more cash out of the rich.
Wealth tax initiatives were big news in early 2023.
Eight lawmakers inspired by State Innovation Exchange introduced bills that were meant to increase the share of tax revenue coming from high-income and high-asset people.
Today, those and similar bills, such as Hawaii’s House Bill 151 and New York’s Assembly Bill 3115, have failed outright or are stuck in committee.
State-by-State List of Selected Tax Bills
To size up what’s happening to state wealth tax legislation and related legislation this spring, we looked for bills that have recently become law, that still have a chance to become law or that had just died, as of March 15.
State legislatures vary widely in how often and how long they remain in session. Some have not been in session for months and have no relevant bills. We include the estimated adjournment dates in the list to give a sense of the timetable involved.
In a few states, like Hawaii and New York state, there were many relevant bills. For those states, we capped the number included at three.
The Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and individual advisors and clients all have their own idea about how to define” wealthy” and “high-income.” We defined those terms broadly and looked for bills that seemed as if they might be of interest to relatively well-to-do clients, whether those clients might be near the federal estate tax exemption limit or simply somewhere around the top 10% in terms of affluence.
In other states, we found just a few active, wealth-related bills, and we flexed definitions a bit to give a state an entry in the table.
The bill classification process was subjective, and other bill watchers who tried to use similar search strategies and similar classification criteria might come up with different lists of bills.
We ended up with a list of 91 bills.
- 13 would increase income taxes, estate taxes, gift taxes or other taxes on high-income or high-asset taxpayers.
- 29 would provide broad tax cuts in income taxes or estate taxes, or further implementation of earlier cuts.
- 23 have implemented or would implement changes in trust, estate planning, gift planning, guardianship or elder abuse rules. Many are based on model laws developed by the Uniform Laws Commission, a nonpartisan body that helps states team up to draft legislation. (We put any bills that seemed to be designed primarily to increase or decrease estate or gift taxes in the tax cut or tax increase categories.)
- 10 could reduce or simplify taxes for residents who invest in precious metals, cryptocurrency, oil or gas wells. The Sound Money Defense League, for example, is backing efforts to free precious metals transactions from capital gains taxes in Georgia, Iowa, Kansas and Michigan.
- 6 would help ease the sting of the $10,000 cap on the federal deductibility of state income taxes by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, by letting owners of certain types of businesses, or “pass-through entities” decide whether to put entity revenue on the entity’s income tax returns or their own, personal income tax returns. The provision can lower some business owners’ overall taxes, because federal tax law still lets businesses deduct state tax expenditures from their taxable income.
- 6 could affect the rules of owners of other types of assets, such as boats or undeveloped land.
- 2 could affect how wealthy clients’ businesses are organized.
- 2 bills, in Massachusetts and Wisconsin, involve efforts to set up state-run retirement account programs.
Alabama
Estimated adjournment date: May 20
House Bill 171
Category: Property Tax
Would create a property tax exemption for small aircraft that are more than 30 years old and are owned either by an individual 65 or older or by a sole proprietor 65 or older.
Status: Passed in House.
House Bill 187
Category: Business
Would let owners of a business that’s a pass-through entity decide whether to pay taxes at the entity level or the individual level, in response to changes in how the IRS treats deductibility of state income tax payments.
(In 2020, the IRS clarified that state income taxes paid by partnerships or S corporations — pass-through entities — are deductible on federal taxes, and that the $10,000 state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap does not apply to taxes paid by the owners of these entities.)
Status: Approved by a committee
Senate Bill 187
Category: Cryptocurrency
Would prohibit the state from levying additional taxes on digital assets, restricting digital asset mining, or enacting zoning restrictions or noise restrictions specific to digital asset mining.
Status: Introduced.
Alaska
Estimated adjournment date: May 15
Senate Bill 81
Category: Estate Planning
Would let the title of a boat or vehicle transfer to a designated beneficiary, outside of the probate process, when the owner dies.
Status: Passed in House.
Senate Bill 161
Category: Real Estate
Would permit a municipality to let voters vote on exempting some farmland from municipal taxes, if the land produced at least $1,000 per year in goods offered for sale and farming accounted for at least 10% of the owner’s revenue.
Status: Passed in committee
Arizona
Estimated adjournment date: April 20
Senate Concurrent Resolution 1010
Category: Cryptocurrency
Would let voters vote on a ballot measure exempting virtual currency from property taxes.
Status: Passed in Senate.
Senate Bill 1197
Category: Cryptocurrency
Would exempt virtual currency from state property taxes if voters approve the virtual currency tax exemption ballot measure proposed in Senate Concurrent Resolution 1010.
Status: Passed in Senate
Senate Bill 1095
Category: Real Estate, Business
Could affect clients who have an ownership stake in golf clubs. It would outline the processes that a golf course owner must go through if the course is to be split, combined or converted to a different use.
Status: Passed in Senate
Arkansas
Estimated adjournment date: May 9
The next session starts April 10. Bills are not yet available.
California
Estimated adjournment date: Aug. 30
Category: Business
Would extend the state Small Business Relief Act until the end of 2027. The act lets some owners of businesses, or pass-through entities, decide whether to be taxed at the business level or the individual level, in response to changes in the federal rules for deductibility of state personal income taxes.
Status: Introduced.
Senate Bill 1499
Category: Income Tax, Retirement
Would reconcile state income tax rules with the more generous federal rules for retirement plan catch-up contributions included in the federal Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (Secure) 2.0 Act, part of the federal Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023.
Secure 2.0 indexed catch-up contributions for people 50 and older to inflation, increased catch-up contribution limits for people 60 to 63 years of age, inclusive, and increased contribution limits for simple plans.
The change would affect the state income taxes of California residents ages 60 through 63.
Status: Set for hearing April 10.
Senate Joint Resolution 14
Category: Retirement
Would urge Congress to “establish a reasonable cap on deferred compensation.”
The resolution was proposed in response to the 10-year, $700 million contract signed by Shohei Ohtani with the Los Angeles Dodgers in late 2023.
“The current contract is structured so that Ohtani will defer $68,000,000 annually, receiving only $2,000,000 per year for 10 years and potentially saving Ohtani over $90,000,000 in state taxes if he were to reside outside of California when the deferred compensation is paid,” the lawmakers wrote, in introducing the resolution.
Status: Introduced.
Colorado
Estimated adjournment date: May 8
House Bill 24-1248
Category: Estate Planning
Would set rules for electronic estate planning documents other than wills by implementing the Uniform Non-Testamentary Electronic Estate Planning Documents Act, which was approved by the Uniform Law Commission in 2022 and is based on the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act. The bill has been enacted in Illinois and introduced in Missouri, Oklahoma, Oregon and Virginia, as well as in Colorado.
Status: Passed in House.
House Bill 24-1271
Category: Income Tax
Would create an income tax credit of $5,000 to $30,000 for a veterinary professional who works in an underserved area and a tax credit of $10,000 to $200,000 for a veterinarian who buys and operates a veterinary practice in an underserved area.
Status: Introduced.
Connecticut
Estimated adjournment date: May 8
House Bill 5117
Category: Estate Tax
Would lower the state estate exemption to $3.6 million, from $13.61 million. Revenue raised would go to the state Early Childhood Education Fund.
Status: Introduced.
House Bill 5037
Category: Estate Tax, Income Tax, Retirement
Would eliminate state income taxes on income from Social Security, pension plans and annuities. It would also eliminate the state’s estate and gift taxes.
Status: Introduced.
House Bill 272
Category: Estate Planning
Would affect the ability of an authorized fiduciary to “decant” a trust, including a charitable trust, by changing the terms of the trust or distributing property from one trust to two or more other trusts.
The act was approved by the Uniform Law Commission in 2015. It has been adopted in 15 states and introduce in Vermont, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia, as well as Connecticut.
Status: Committee hearing held.
Delaware
Estimated adjournment date: June 30
House Bill 338
Category: Estate Planning
Would update the Delaware Statutory Trust Act. One section would let beneficial owners of an investment fund decide how the securities in the fund should vote.
Status: Committee hearing scheduled.
House Bill 339
Category: Business
Would update the Delaware Revised Uniform Partnership Act to include provisions governing mergers of domestic business partnerships.
Status: Committee hearing scheduled.
Senate Bill 201
Category: Income Tax, Retirement
Would increase the state income tax exemption for military pension income for pensioners younger than 60 to $25,000, from $12,500 today.
Status: Introduced.
District of Columbia
Estimated adjournment date: Dec. 31
Bill 25-0225
Category: Estate Planning
Would add the Uniform Law Commission’s Uniform Directed Trust Act to D.C. trust laws. A “directed trust” is a trust set up in such a way that an outside fiduciary oversees the work of the trustee.
Status: Introduced.
Bill 25-0224
Category: Estate Planning
Would adopt the Uniform Law Commission’s Uniform Trust Decanting Act of 2023, which sets rules that a trustee can follow when changing a trust’s rules or moving assets into other trusts. One provision ensures that any charitable interests may not be reduced or eliminated.
Status: Introduced.
Florida
Adjourned: March 8
House Bill 923
Category: Estate Planning
Would update how the state’s probate laws treat a couple’s community property after one spouse dies. It seeks to reduce the chances that community property rights will be forfeited.
Status: Sent to governor.
House Bill 521
Category: Estate Planning, Real Estate
Would update the results governing distribution of marital assets and liabilities in a divorce, including real estate acquired separately by either spouse through a gift.
Status: Sent to governor.
House Bill 1093
Category: Estate Planning
Would adopt a modified version of the Uniform Law Commission’s Uniform Fiduciary Income and Principal Act. The update seeks to provide flexibility for more individualized estate planning and includes rules designed to reduce jurisdictional disputes.
Status: Sent to governor.
Georgia
Estimated adjournment date: March 28
House Bill 1015
Category: Income Tax
Would cut the state income tax rate to 4.99%, from 5.49% today, by decreasing the rate by 0.1% percentage points per year for five years.
Status: Passed in House.
House Bill 895
Category: Capital Gains
Would exclude from taxation net capital gains or losses derived from the sale or exchange of precious metals.
Status: Introduced.
House Bill 929
Category: Capital Gains
Would exclude net capital gains on investments from income calculations for state income tax purposes.
Status: Introduced.
Hawaii
Estimated adjournment date: May 2
House Bill 1803
Category: Business
Would affect taxes on businesses classified as pass-through entities.
Status: Passed in House.
House Bill 1660
Category: Capital Gains
Would tax capital gains at the same rate as ordinary income.
Status: Passed in House.
Senate Bill 3289
Category: Estate Tax
Would change the state estate tax rules regarding marital deductions and the passage of interest in a property to a family member. Would also change how the state generation-skipping transfer tax handles transfers of assets, by stating that the transfer of assets to an immediate family member shall not be considered a distribution to a skip person, as defined in Internal Revenue Code section 2613.
Status: Passed in House.
Idaho
Estimated adjournment date: March 29
House Bill 521
Category: Income Tax
Would cut the state income tax rate to 5.695%, from 5.8%.
Status: Passed in House.
Illinois
Estimated adjournment date: May 24
Senate Bill 1880
Category: Income Tax, Business
Would change tax rules for partnership interests in investment partnerships, by classifying some partnership interests as securities that qualify for special treatment under state income tax rules. The Illinois Venture Capital Association says the change would improve Illinois tax rules for private equity firms.
Status: Passed in House.
Indiana
Estimated adjournment date: March 14
Senate Bill 228
Category: Income Tax, Business
Would let owners of a business that’s a pass-through entity decide whether to pay taxes at the entity level or the individual level, in response to changes in how the IRS treats deductibility of state income tax payments.
Status: Signed by governor.
Iowa
Estimated adjournment date: April 16
Senate File 2396
Category: Inheritance Tax
Would implement Iowa’s inheritance tax repeal, which is set to take effect Jan. 1.
Status: Passed in the Senate and in a House committee.
House File 2638
Category: Income Tax, Retirement
Would exempt up to $500,000 from nonqualified deferred compensation plan earnings from the state income tax for an individual who is disabled, 55 or older, or the surviving spouse of an individual or survivor having an insurable interest in an individual who would have qualified for the exemption.
Status: Introduced.
House File 2626
Category: Capital Gains
Would exempt capital gains on the sale of bullion, coins and currency from the state income tax.
Status: Introduced.
Kansas
Estimated adjournment date: May 17
House Bill 2109
Category: Income Tax, Retirement
Would exempt all Social Security income from state income taxes for taxpayers at all income levels. The full exemption has been available only to taxpayers with income less than $75,000.
Status: Approved by a committee.
Senate Bill 303
Category: Capital Gains
Would exempt capital gains on the sale of bullion and coins from the state income tax.
Status: Approved by a committee.
Kentucky
Estimated adjournment date: April 15
House Bill 451
Category: Estate Planning
Would let a will refer to a separate written statement or list in order for an individual to dispose of items of tangible personal property not otherwise specifically bequeathed.
Status: Passed in the House.
Louisiana
Estimated adjournment date: June 3
House Bill 719
Category: Estate Tax
Would eliminate references in state law to an inheritance tax system that was repealed in 2008.
Status: Introduced.
Maine
Estimated adjournment date: April 17
House Paper 779
Category: Business
Would phase out the state’s tax on insurance companies’ annuity revenue.
Status: Passed in House.
House Paper 779
Category: Income Tax
Would have the state change its income tax rate brackets to “bring fairness to Maine families.”
The bill is a “concept draft” for a bill changing the income tax brackets but keeping the existing tax rates.
Status: Introduced.
House Paper 1196
Category: Income Tax
Would create a state income tax surcharge for taxpayers with income of more than $100,000 for an individual or more than $200,000 for a couple, including a new tax bracket aimed specifically at taxpayers with income over $10 million for an individual and $20 million for a couple.
Status: Failed.
Maryland
Estimated adjournment date: April 8
House Bill 100
Category: Estate Tax
Would let beneficiaries of limited means who inherit property pay the state inheritance tax in installments.
Status: Passed in House.
House Bill 803
Category: Income Tax
