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Over the last three decades, a little-noted change has taken place in state lotteries. This change is an increase in the average payout rate, the share of sales that is returned to players in the form of prizes. Because it reduces the rate of implicit taxation on lottery purchases and its accompanying welfare loss, this change has inadvertently made lotteries better, or at least less objectionable. This paper reviews the normative case for reducing the implied tax, documents the rise in payout rates across the United States, offers an explanation for that rise, notes the starring role played by instant games, illustrates its effect on the regressivity of lottery finance, and documents the surprising correlation between the price of instant games and their payout rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented event that has shocked economies worldwide, propelling large-scale adaptation of expansionary policies. This paper examines how, specifically in the scope of developed countries, key economic indicators such as tax revenue and burden, labor force participation rate, and federal budget have been impacted by the pandemic. The specific nations examined in the paper include the United States of America (USA), Japan, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom (UK). The article reveals that tax revenue had fallen at a rate similar to the GDP, and a redistribution of the tax burden has also occurred to some extent. Simultaneously, a fall in the labor force participation rate and increased government deficit were observed. This observation is primarily consistent across all five countries sampled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a neoclassical model with endogenous growth, this study examines the effects of increasing housing taxation and eliminating the mortgage interest tax deduction on economic growth and household welfare in the United States. The optimal tax policy reduces taxation of income in favor of increased taxation of housing and consumption. This policy increases the growth rate by 0.49 percentage points. In addition, simply shifting the tax burden by reducing the tax rates on productive forms of capital toward housing can increase the growth rate up to 0.18 percentage points. This study also find that eliminating the income tax deduction on mortgage interest and lowering income taxes would increase growth by about 0.016 percentage points. Each of these proposed policies improves household welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The continued migration of Americans to states with favorable climates and better job opportunities results in change of residency issues that affect clients' state tax liabilities (income, estate, or inheritance). Financial advisors and tax consultants should be aware of the crucial issues in this area. Ensuring that key requirements are met during the relocation process will help clients take advantage of tax-saving opportunities and avoid audit adjustments by state tax authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many provisions of the Internal Revenue Code work to reduce the farmer's income tax bill from the farm's day-to-day operations. However, those same provisions can create an unexpected, unpleasant spike in taxable income when the farmer retires. Charitable giving offers the possibility of reducing the retiring farmer's overall tax burden by taxing income over several years, perhaps at significantly lower income tax rates. In addition, it can provide retirement income and potentially ways to enhance the farmer's bequests to the family and to charity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The line between legitimate tax planning and abusive tax positions, while clear in many instances, produces a significant amount of controversy. Judicial scrutiny of close cases has led to the development of a body of loosely related anti-abuse doctrines designed to separate the wheat from the chaff. However, textualist judges have increasingly rejected or limited the use of anti-abuse doctrines out of a concern that such doctrines undermine taxpayer reliance on the law. Critics contend that by rejecting anti-abuse doctrines, these textualist judges legitimate abusive tax shelters and deprive the judiciary of essential tools for curbing abuse. This Note responds to textualists and their critics alike by arguing that textualism is not incompatible with judicial anti-abuse doctrines. After surveying major landmarks in the historical development of the legal system's treatment of tax abuse and considering the Sixth Circuit's approach to the issue, this Note develops an account of judicial anti-abuse doctrines as textually sensitive aids to statutory interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State tax and nontax incentives have been widespread in the United States, though their efficacy in job creation and economic development has been repeatedly questioned in the literature by scholars and policy makers. Why, then, do states persistently pursue these incentive policies? Using the newly developed Panel Database on Incentives and Taxes, we adopt a dynamic spatial Durbin panel model to account for both temporal and spatial dependence and to shed light on this question. Empirical evidence suggests a statistically significant and positive relationship between tax credits and tax burdens (i.e., elevated tax breaks are used to offset higher tax differentials). States therefore may seek to create a level playing field in business attraction and retention by overcoming tax disadvantages. Besides, high-serial dependence is present in the use of various tax credits, suggesting a high self-perpetuating tendency that tax breaks, once introduced, are likely to be persistent over time. States are also found to be engaged both in spatial competition or imitation among geographically proximate states, and in strategic benchmarking among states that are geographically distant but economically alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the most controversial changes in federal tax policy in recent years is the new limitation on the deductibility of state and local taxes--or SALT cap. Introduced as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the SALT cap differentially burdens residents of high-tax "blue states," prompting some lawmakers to characterize the cap as an act of "economic civil war." In one of the opening salvos of this "war," a handful of blue states turned to alternative devices for raising revenue through the use of tax credits for charitable donations to state-designated funds. This strategy, modeled on long-standing "red state" tax credits used to fund private school vouchers, is rooted in the government's "power not to tax," understood here as the power to conditionally refrain from imposing taxes in exchange for the taxpayer making some legislatively sanctioned outlay. The introduction of the SALT cap has given new significance to this power not to tax, encouraging state and local lawmakers to devise strategies for funding public goods without utilizing formal tax mechanisms. This Article explores and evaluates the structural features of the law that account for this new state of affairs, as well as the ongoing controversy regarding how best to address the basic discontinuity in the law's treatment of formal taxation versus conditional reductions in taxation. It also provides a blueprint for an alternative federal tax framework based on the uniform treatment of "social contributions"--i.e., a broader category of outlays including both taxes paid to state and local governments as well as charitable gifts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Obesity is a public health problem in the United States that has been linked to excess sweetener consumption. The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends no more than 6–9 teaspoons/capita/day, while the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends 200 calories/capita/day of caloric sweetener consumption. Both recommendations are well below the reported 2016 sweetener consumption levels. We quantify the input tax rates needed to reduce the current excess sweetener consumption level to the AHA and FDA recommended standards. We calculate the joint tax in the United States on two major sweeteners, sugar and High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), to be 31 and 24 cents per pound, respectively, based on the AHA standard, and 19 and 17 cents per pound, respectively, using the FDA standard. These taxes would be roughly the magnitude of the existing sugar and HFCS prices. In both cases, the tax incidence on producers is much smaller than on consumers. Our focus is very different from past studies in that it deals with the effect of taxes on inputs to meet the recommended target rather than a selective tax (sugar‐sweetened beverage tax). If a sweetener tax were implemented, U.S. sugar and HFCS producers would lose US$398–US$489 and US$683–US$844 million per year, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses whether financial difficulty can constitute reasonable cause for small business to avoid paying tax penalties in the U.S. Topics discussed include the importance of taxation, the tax burden of small business owners, and the use of a multi-factor test for determining reasonable cause. Also discussed are the contribution of small businesses in the U.S. economy, the impact of recession on small businesses, and relevant codes and regulations for failing to pay taxes.

Previous research and theory on state general sales tax policy provide the major factors and components of the sales tax base that affect revenue reliance and tax burden. However, previous research on general sales tax policy has concentrated on individual factors and components of the sales tax base without considering the interdependent and interrelated causes of revenue reliance and tax burden. In addition, regression-based analyses are limited in analyzing the causal conjunctures that affect revenue reliance and tax burden. Thus, this research focused on a complementary approach to the effects of causes and the causes of effects, thereby empirically examining the combined causes of revenue reliance and tax burden through a (fs) QCA analysis of U.S. state data spanning from 2007 to 2010. This study reveals that the combined causes of revenue reliance and tax burden vary as ideal types compared with the effects of real types observed in the panel data analysis. This study contributes to the current literature by examining interrelated and interdependent causal relationships with regard to revenue reliance and tax burden in a complementary manner. State governments must consider the combined effects of causal conjunctures that affect revenue reliance and tax burden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate how revenue diversification affects tax burden in major U.S cities as it interacts with fiscal balance reported in the general fund over the economic cycle. We find that more diversified cities have higher tax burdens, and that this effect is strengthened when cities maintain a large surplus in the general fund. We also test models of revenue diversification's impact on tax burden using data from 1995 to 2010, separated into good fiscal years (1995-2001, 2004-2007, 2010) and bad fiscal years (2002-2003, 2008-2009). Model estimates show that greater revenue diversification leads to higher tax burden in bad fiscal years but this outcome is not found in good fiscal years. Cities seek greater revenue diversification when they are experiencing economic recessions. This study contains important implications for local financial management and contributes to the literature on revenue diversification and tax burden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We compare the economic and environmental effects of several specifications of a green tax reform (GTR)where tax revenues are used to support renewable energy sources (RESs) and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) activities. With this aim, we propose an equilibrium model where final-goods production uses labour and energy, and energy production uses nonpolluting RES and polluting fossil fuels. The comparison is based on three key indicators: output per worker, energy intensity and the ratio of renewables over nonrenewables. We test five variations of the GTR in addition to the no-policy case. Results show that a GTR as the one we propose here never provides a double dividend. There are environmental benefits but at the expense of the economy. Additionally, for lower tax levels, prioritizing RES support has lower economic costs and potential environmental benefits. For higher tax levels, CCS support becomes more competitive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on principal focuses of U.S. international tax planning generally are minimizing or eliminating current U.S. federal income tax on income earned offshore. It mentions the U.S. Internal Revenue Code in the cross-border setting that permit what would otherwise be taxable income to be exempted from U.S. federal income tax. It also mentions federal income tax burdens imposed on U.S. persons who participate in foreign pensions can be severe.

A vast amount of tax literature appeals to the premise that a system of taxation should assign tax burdens according to taxpayers' "ability to pay." Despite the broad-based assent to the importance of "ability to pay," however, there has been far from a consensus on why it is important, or even on what the term means. These confusions are frequently overlooked, though, because many of the characterizations of and justifications for "ability to pay" come out the same way on various issues--thus masking the differences among the viewpoints. In this Article, I attempt to unpack and shed much-needed light on the term "ability to pay". It turns out that the notion of "ability to pay" is employed for two main reasons: Distributing the tax burden according to people's ability to pay furthers both egalitarian and utilitarian ideals. In this Article, I begin by teasing these goals apart and by explaining how they are furthered by distributing the tax burden according to people's "ability to pay." I then proceed to explore in greater depth how successful the notion of "ability to pay" is at furthering each of these two goals, and I consider different ways of assigning the tax burden (and different collection methods) that could perhaps better further egalitarian and utilitarian goals. While many accounts further both goals somewhat well, and while many of these same accounts further one goal extremely well, it is difficult to identify an account that furthers both goals extremely well. Ultimately, I zero in on an account that, in my view, best satisfies the egalitarian goal and best satisfies the utilitarian goal. Further, because it best satisfies both individual goals, I argue that it is also the account that best satisfies the underlying ambition of an "ability to pay" tax system to further both goals. The account that I offer is a version of a utility tax--a version both according to which the tax is collected in terms of utility, and according to which the tax burden is determined in terms of utility. The account I offer, in various ways, could be described as an "ability to pay" tax in terms of utility. Thus, although I begin the Article by exploring the notion of an "ability to pay" tax and I then argue that an "ability to pay" tax, as it currently exists, is not the account that best furthers egalitarianism and efficiency, the account I defend does incorporate some key features of an "ability to pay" tax (despite being very different in other ways). Further, it is only in virtue of unpacking the notion of "ability to pay," and exploring the rationales and justifications that underlie it, that I will be able to identify the account I defend, recognizing its unique ability to simultaneously further egalitarian and utilitarian goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We approach to point out new direction of measurement the attention of the news related to changes in taxes by using the application Google Trends. The objective of the study is to extend literature that investigates the impact of the information's search intensity provided by Google Trends on capital market. We show that increasing attention on tax changes measured by Google search decrease stock prices of the US companies listed on NASDAQ. Moreover, we focus on abnormal Google searches related to particular shocks. The study investigates the positive relationship between attention to news about tax changes and stock prices in a specific year. The cross-sectional analysis employs data from 2004 and 2005. At that time, President George Bush enacted tax breaks for overseas corporate profits, which had a great impact on search intensity within the period. Additionally, we differentiate between market capitalisation by using the dummy variables to put on the role changes of probability on selected datasets. The results confirmed higher impact of attention on large cap companies and point out the importance of sentiment analysis at liquid markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the price effect of an excise tax in a duopoly setting. Previous studies have considered the Cournot and Bertrand models but ignore the Cournot-Bertrand model in which one firm competes in output and the other firm competes in price. This omission is important because Cournot-Bertrand behavior is observed in the real world, and the Cournot-Bertrand model provides dramatically different results. Unlike in the Cournot and Bertrand models, we find that firms in the same industry have different pass-through rates in the Cournot-Bertrand model even when they face identical demand and cost conditions. This provides another reason why tax incidence policy is so complex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The estate tax and income tax rules independently attempt to either promote or deter different behaviors. The interaction of these different rules often leads to disparate or unintended consequences to taxpayers: for example, achieving an overall lower effective tax rate by paying more estate tax to lower the income tax rate. This overlay of the estate tax rules on the income tax rules is a key problem at the core of our tax system. Yet, few scholars focus on this topic. In this Article, I document the actual behavior of the trust and estate bar. By looking at how attorneys approach the intersection of estate and income taxes, I demonstrate deficiencies in the current scholarly belief, which is based largely on anecdotal information, that the wealthy have a preference for paying less or no estate tax. I show the real-world preferences that indicate wealthy taxpayers are paying high levels of estate tax to minimize the income tax incidents. After showing the shift of preferences and the resulting overall tax loss to the fisc, the Article then proposes useful policy solutions, such as elimination of the estate tax or using death as an income tax triggering event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the dividend clientele hypothesis by focusing on the preferential tax treatment of qualified dividends provided by the 2003 Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (JGTRRA) in the United States. Using the Public Use Tax File data, the author finds that the ratios of dividends to long-term capital gains before the 2003 tax act significantly declined with household tax rate differentials between dividends and long-term capital gains, but such a negative tax effect on the ratios disappears afterwards. This seemingly tax-inefficient composition of dividends and long-term capital gains after the tax act arises from households’ ability to reduce their tax burdens on stocks by exploiting the new preferential tax treatments on qualified dividends under JGTRRA. That is, households in the upper tax bracket hold significantly greater shares of qualified dividends relative to ordinary dividends after the tax act. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the repeal of the General Utilities doctrine over 30 years ago, corporations must recognize gain when distributing appreciated property to their shareholders. Regulated investment companies (RICs), which generally must be organized as domestic corporations, are exempt from this rule when distributing property in kind to a redeeming shareholder. In-kind redemptions, while rare for mutual funds, are a fundamental feature of exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Because fund managers decide which securities to distribute, they distribute assets with unrealized gains and thereby significantly reduce the future tax burdens of their current and future shareholders. Many ETFs have morphed into investment vehicles that offer better after-tax returns than IRAs funded with after-tax contributions. Furthermore, this rule is now being turbocharged. Some mutual fund families have created ETF classes of shares for some of their mutual funds, which permits the ETF shareholders to remove the gains attributable to the shareholders of the regular share class. Another firm acts as a strategic investor to assist mutual funds in eliminating their unrealized gains through contributions and redemptions. These transactions permit current and future fund shareholders to inappropriately defer tax on their economic gains and give ETFs and other mutual funds with ETF share classes a significant tax advantage over other investment vehicles. This article considers various options that tax policymakers should consider to eliminate the ETF tax subsidy including explicitly extending this favorable tax treatment to all RICs by exempting fund-level gains from tax, repealing the exemption rule, limiting the amount of unrealized gains a fund can distribute, requiring ETFs to reduce the basis of their remaining property by the unrecognized gain of distributed property, or requiring ETFs to be taxed as partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) change to the way maintenance payments will be treated beginning in January 1, 2019. Topics covered include the shift in the tax burden from the recipient to the individual paying the maintenance, the change in the economics of maintenance payments caused by the shift in the tax burden, and the potential side effects of the impact of TCJA on maintenance payments.

How do differences in the motive for conspicuous consumption in the United States and China affect the incidence of taxes in those countries? In this paper I develop a model of conspicuous consumption in which a consumer cares not only about the direct utility she receives from consumption, but also about the way her consumption pattern affects her peer group's belief about her well-being. Estimating the model on American and Chinese data, I find that a Chinese consumer cares 20% more than an American consumer about peer beliefs. I use the estimated model in several experiments related to tax incidence. I find that the 1990–2002 American luxury tax on automobiles led to widespread but small welfare gains, and that the stronger Chinese motive for conspicuous consumption leads to fewer households harmed and larger median welfare gains from a 10% tobacco excise tax. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the changes contained in the Tax Reform Act of 1986 is the tax on unearned income of minor children, also known as the "kiddie tax." We review this tax, its legislative history, the amendments and interpretations that have enlarged its application, and the unintended consequences that resulted from the expansion of the kiddie tax to young adults up to the age of 24, specifically as it applies to taxable scholarship income. Many college students whose higher educations are heavily subsidized by scholarships may face significant tax burdens as a result of the kiddie tax. This reality is not in line with the congressional intent of curtailing tax avoidance through shifting ownership of income-producing assets. We provide examples of the tax's impact, and we conclude by offering potential solutions that protect the public fisc while reducing the negative and unintended consequences created by expansion of the kiddie tax. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2009, Medicare Advantage became a prime target in the Obama Administration's efforts to pay for the Affordable Care Act (ACA). After securing substantial cuts to a program the President described as a failure, the Obama administration was compelled to take unprecedented administrative steps to put billions of dollars back into Medicare Advantage. These developments demonstrate how Medicare Advantage's support constituency, which has come to include Democrats, Republicans, beneficiaries, and the managed care industry, has maintained more political influence in the aftermath of the ACA than some initially believed. The continued and growing influence of the Medicare Advantage constituency does not, however, mean that Medicare is primed for a more conservative turn toward vouchers or premium support. With the provision of generous benefits and increasing evidence that Medicare Advantage produces higher quality health outcomes than traditional Medicare, Medicare Advantage appears to be secure in its current form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The law of trusts has spent the last twenty years rapidly shedding many traditional requirements, forms, and restrictions which imposed liability on negligent trustees, protected vulnerable beneficiaries, and prevented the use of trusts to avoid the claims of settlors' and beneficiaries' creditors, including their spouses, their children, and their governments. This article studies seven aspects of this 'stripping of the trust,' examines its consequences from both a distributive justice and a corrective justice point of view, and inquires whether the resulting stripped-down model coheres with the traditional functionality of donative private trusts. I found that most of the current reforms have welfare-reducing distributive consequences, in some cases inflicting externalities on all except the parties to a given trust, in others transferring value from settlors and beneficiaries to the trust service providers serving them. Most of the reforms discussed also create potential for infringements of corrective justice which either did not exist, or was less significant, pre-reform. I conclude that all but one of the seven reforms I examine should be reversed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the history, purpose and effects of taxation under the provisions of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), which levies tax burdens and obligations upon the U.S. citizens living abroad thereby resulting into increased renouncing of the U.S. citizenship. It analyzes the harsh effects of expatriation or renouncing of citizenship leading to burdensome some tax regimes and restricted immigration laws under the Expatriation Act of 1868.

The renewable energy field is currently stifled because many renewable energy developments require tax equity investors to provide additional funds to get the projects off the ground and running. The Tax Code provides credits to incentivize investors to invest. Currently, the Investment Tax Credit ("ITC") is the only available credit remaining for renewable projects. Tax credits are a step in the right direction to encourage renewable investment; however, the credits are limited in application, mostly to large financial institutions. Moreover, investing into one specific renewable energy project can be risky because there is no assurance that the development will yield a cash flow or be placed in service on time to receive the expected credit amount. Additionally, investing directly on-site into a renewable energy project is mostly accomplished for the purpose of receiving a credit to offset taxes from passive taxable income. This purpose may not meet the needs of many investors. Instead of a tax credit, other investors may want some type of rate of return, either through dividends, stock appreciation or some other method. To remedy these issues, the legislature and the IRS should focus on alternative methods to expand renewable energy investment. First, the government should continue to put pressure on large companies (finance and other) to invest in renewable energy projects and to make renewable energy investment commitments. Second, these companies may not have an objective to receive a tax credit for investing directly on-site to a renewable project. Therefore, there needs to be alternative methods for these companies to invest. Asset-backed securities, Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and Master Limited Partnership's (MLPs) are alternative investment methods that would satisfy these companies' investment needs. Moreover, because on-site investment is mostly limited to large institutions, these alternative investment methods open the market for smaller investors to get a piece of the pie. The smaller investor pool is untested water: it could provide for a substantial amount of renewable energy investment. These alternative methods should be used in conjunction with the ITC because companies have varying investment objectives. Large financial institutions will still want to invest on-site to receive the credits and deductions, whereas other companies that do not have enough taxes from passive taxable income (and otherwise would not be investing in the renewable project) can invest in the securities for a rate of return. This will have the effect of increasing renewable investment and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business losses are a persistent reality and far from an insignificant economic phenomenon. They are disruptive for businesses and burdensome for tax authorities. This Article builds a theory of tax-loss-mechanism design and discusses its normative implications. Although income-tax laws in the United States and elsewhere conclusively adopt a loss-offset mechanism, economists often advocate that losses be governed by a tax-refundability regime. Tax scholars, on the other hand, largely ignore the question of the desirable tax-loss mechanism. This Article constructs and applies an economic framework for analyzing three prominent tax mechanisms for the treatment of losses: offset, refundability, and transferability. The economic theory that we develop yields several new insights and results. We show that all three tax mechanisms diverge primarily by legal design choices rather than by any inherent feature, and therefore, contrary to the common understanding in the literature, any normative choice can be implemented through any of the three, setting aside implementation costs. The commonly perceived differences among these tax mechanisms are erroneously grounded in observations of existing tax rules; this has prevented scholars from envisioning a redesign according to policy preferences. The analysis further redirects the tax-policy focus to the desirable tax-rate schedule for losses (regardless of the choice of the tax mechanism). It uncovers the endogenous tax-rate schedule that applies to losses under typical tax-treatment mechanisms. In the case of loss offset, the revealed schedule seems capricious with decreasing or cyclical tax brackets. Our analysis derives a few additional new results, which are subsequently examined in our suggested normative framework. Generally, this Article: (a) proposes a general, design-based approach to tax laws and (b) applies it to the treatment of losses, proving its value by inferring new results, which in turn (c) makes possible a broader and better-informed normative consideration for tax scholars and policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can an income tax system be designed to exploit human nature and a free market to create a poverty free society, while balancing budgets without disproportional tax burdens? Such a tax system, with universal character, is deduced from the following guiding principles: (1) a single tax rate applies to all income types and levels; (2) the tax rate adjusts to satisfy budget projections; (3) government transfer only supplements the income of households with self-generated income below the poverty line; (4) deductions for basic living expenses, itemized investments and capital losses are allowed; (5) deductions cannot be applied to government transfer. A general framework emerges with three parameters that determine a minimum allowed tax deduction, a maximum allowed itemized deduction, and a maximum deduction defined by income percentage. An income distribution that mimics the United States, and a series of log-normal distributions are considered to quantitatively compare detailed characteristics of this tax system to progressive and flat tax systems. To minimize government dependency while maximizing after-tax income, the effective tax rate (ETR) as a function of income percentile takes the shape of the letter, V, inspiring the name victory tax, where the middle class has the lowest ETR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Grocery taxes existed in more than one third of U.S. states in 2020. • States with grocery taxes or considering grocery taxes tend to have higher food insecurity. • Taxing groceries correlates with increases in food insecurity. • Taxing groceries on average at 4.2% increases the probability of low-income household food insecurity by 3.3%. • Policymakers should look at ways to lessen the burden of this tax on lower-income households. In the United States, grocery tax policy varies at both state and county levels, with 16 states having grocery taxes in 2020. Several states are engaged in active debates about whether to remove or impose such taxes. Although the extant literature evaluates multiple factors that may contribute to food insecurity, little is known about the relationship between grocery food sales taxes and food insecurity. We present county-level panel data on grocery taxes from 2006 through 2017 and find that jurisdictions with grocery taxes are among the most food insecure in the country. The regressiveness of grocery taxes exacerbates food insecurity, at least in theory. We link our tax data with county-level food insecurity measures and other data from the Current Population Survey. Treating grocery taxes as exogenous, we estimate that a one percentage point increase in grocery tax rates is associated with a 0.84% increase in the probability of being food insecure for low-income households. Using these estimates, we conduct policy simulations of grocery taxes that have been recently considered in six states and assess the potential impacts on food insecurity. One caveat is that our estimator may be biased towards or away from zero depending on whether increases in grocery taxes within counties over time are positively or negatively correlated with unobservables affecting food security. However, assuming the onset and removal of grocery taxes within a county are exogenous, our results show that proposed grocery taxes may exacerbate food insecurity by one to five percentage points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]