Vanessa Williamson of the Brookings Institution joins Christopher Mitchell to discuss her new book, Read My Lips: Why Americans Are Proud to Pay Taxes, and the changing American attitudes in regard to taxation.… Read More
Stacy Mitchell’s expertise on the growing monopoly power of Amazon in our economy was cited by Emel Akan’s article in The Epoch Times arguing that, while President Trump’s anger at Amazon may be inflammatory, he isn’t all wrong in the ways that the company is disadvantaging small businesses and retail across America.… Read More
Tennessee has long been a thorn in the side of our broadband policy research team, thanks in large part to a pair of realities. 1) Chattanooga, Tenn. has some of the best connectivity in the world thanks to its municipal broadband network and 2) there’s a restrictive state law that disables municipalities from investing in their connectivity. Motherboard Vice‘s Jason Koebler discussed this trend and recent legislative action with Christopher Mitchell.… Read More
ILSR is featured in this story from The Epoch Times on the growth of Amazon in our economy and the kind of impact it is having in every sector it touches.… Read More
This map shows the states in which Amazon collects sales taxes.… Read More
Amid the discussion over ending the federal solar tax credit in 2015, I published an analysis of the less-than-expected hit to residential solar costs. I made a big mistake. Instead of a 2.5% cost increase, the impact of the expired tax credit would be closer to 13.3%. But a revised and deeper investigation also shows our … Read More
In the first episode of our new podcast series, “Building Local Power,” Chris Mitchell, the director of our Community Broadband Networks initiative, interviews Olivia LaVecchia, a research associate with our Community-Scaled Economy initiative, about her work on the “dark store” strategy that big-box retailers have been using to slash their property tax assessments.… Read More
In May of 2016, the U.S. Representative from Silicon Valley, Mike Honda (D), introduced the Energy Storage for Grid Resilience and Modernization Act (H.R. 5350). In short, this bill extends the current 30% Renewable Energy Tax Credit (which was just extended last year) to energy storage technologies, not just the wind, solar, and geothermal power plants … Read More
In May 2016, a new type of sales tax fairness law took effect in South Dakota. The new law requires merchants to collect the state’s sales taxes if their revenue from sales in South Dakota exceeds $100,000 per year, or if they process 200 or more separate transactions a year in the state. The law is part of an effort by states to challenge the existing sales tax fairness standard, and both put pressure on federal legislators and bring the issue back before the U.S. Supreme Court.… Read More
