Today my colleague Patrick Tuohey and I are proud to announce the publication of our latest essay, "A New Tax Policy Vision for Missouri." While the Institute has a vast body of work that often addresses state and local taxation as separate topics, this new essay takes a more comprehensive approach to the subject, in light of recent debates, and deconstructs the tax issue—an approach we hope will help encourage tax reform around sound principles of good governance. As we say in the introduction,

Taxation requires a taking, with or without the consent of the individual. Because it is a taking, the debate about taxes—about how much money should be drawn from private enterprise, in what manner, and for what purpose—is among the most important debates in which policymakers engage. With that in mind, we must carefully consider what public goods are so vital that we must impose taxes to fund them. How much taxation is fair? And who is to pay it?

Specifically the essay grapples with income tax policy, state and local tax incentives, and the appropriate provision of government services such as roads. We hope that this more basic and holistic approach to the tax policy questions that face policymakers is informative and digestible to laypersons and experts alike.