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1 Ellen Kant & Joseph Henchman, How Easy Is It to Find Tax Information on State Websites 1 (2013)

handle is hein.taxfoundation/ffdgfxz0001 and id is 1 raw text is: April 15, 2013 No. 365 How Easy Is It to Find Tax Information on State Websites? By Ellen Kant &Joseph Henchman It's April, which means Americans are rushing to finish federal and state income tax returns for 2012. Those who file a paper return rely on forms and rate tables posted online by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and state revenue departments. Even taxpayers who file returns with the help of paid tax preparers or computer software may make use of instructional information provided on state websites. Employers, for instance, need to know 2013 tax rates now for withholding purposes. Consequently, we decided to evaluate how easily available this information is on the websites of state tax agencies (often a revenue department, department of taxation, or tax commissioner). We conducted two tests in March 2013: * We counted how many clicks it took to find 2012 income tax rates from the agency's website homepage. In five states (Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Jersey, and North Carolina), it takes taxpayers five clicks to find this information from the homepage. Taxpayers in three states (Colorado, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania) can get it in two clicks. * We assessed whether the state had made available (and findable in a spot check by our analyst) the 2012 and 2013 tax rates, tax table, and tax forms. While nearly all states had most of this information, our analysts were able to find allof this information only in five states (Colorado, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Virginia; some of these states have one-rate taxes, making tax tables unnecessary). The vast majority of state revenue websites do not yet provide 2013 tax rate information even though 2013 income tax is currently being withheld from taxpayers' paychecks. Transparency can be a difficult thing to quantify, and we admit that these two tests are not a perfect proxy. However, poor transparency of basic tax information imposes real costs on taxpayers. The time and money an individual spends complying with taxes prevents them from productively spending these resources elsewhere. Ideally, a taxpayer should be able to quickly and easily locate and understand all taxes owed and with that information make informed allocative decisions and budgeting plans.

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