This article by Patrick Gleason was originally published in Forbes and quotes Palmetto Promise Senior Fellow Dr. Oran Smith. COLUMBIA, S.C. — 2025 is a big year for tax reform and the work now being done on Capitol Hill to extend the tax relief enacted in 2017 as part of the Tax Cuts And Jobs

In 2015, South Carolina’s Office of the State Treasurer released a report on the health of the state employee retirement system entitled “The Pothole that you can’t see.” In this examination of our state’s pension system, the numbers were shocking. According to the report, as of 2015, the state retirement system’s unfunded liability stood at

Palmetto Promise Institute’s new research report Achieving Prosperity, Stability, & Fairness: Essential South Carolina Tax Reforms lays out the tax code changes that state legislators would be wise to prioritize in the 2025-26 legislative session. INTRODUCTION Palmetto Promise Institute has produced two major reports assessing the competitiveness and fairness of the South Carolina tax code (2014;

This op ed by Palmetto Promise Senior Fellow Dr. Oran Smith was originally published in the National Review, July 23, 2024. Because South Carolina wisely resisted total lockdown during Covid, coming out of the pandemic, we were in a good position. But on fiscal issues, state leaders had been content to kick the can down

Since 2017, Palmetto Promise Institute has been sounding the alarm that our South Carolina tax code is unfair, uncompetitive and imbalanced. In 2019, we took our claims to the next level by commissioning and releasing an econometric tax study by the foremost independent economist in South Carolina, Dr. Rebecca Gunnlaugsson.   Turns out we were right!  

Now that the General Assembly has adjourned sine die, we are taking a look back at the 23 policies Palmetto Promise proposed in the 2023-24 Palmetto Freedom Agenda at the beginning of the legislative session. Did our Freedom Agenda policies make it into law? Or, at the very least, did they start a conversation that future General Assemblies

Palmetto Promise Institute remains firm in our belief that when the Conference Committee working on the 2024-25 state budget faces the choice between cutting the state individual income tax rate and rebating a portion of the property tax, it should pick a permanent reduction in the individual income tax. This is looking more doable with

As you read these words, a Conference Committee of the South Carolina Senate and House has been tasked with hammering out a state budget for the year that begins on July 1, 2024. There are instances where the House and Senate versions differ, and there are 353 pages of “provisos,” the instructions that the legislature

At Palmetto Promise, we are always reluctant to question any move by the South Carolina General Assembly to cut taxes or flatten tax rates. So, we greet with joy the fact that in the wake of an estimated $500-$600 million state revenue surplus that has built up since 2020, the Senate and the House are

Since he was elected to the South Carolina Senate in 2012, Senator Sean Bennett has been a strong, steady voice for comprehensive tax reform. Bennett is known for taking to the well of the Senate and laying out his very specific concerns about how our current tax code is unfair, unstable and uncompetitive. Two of