STATE TAX REFORM: THE QUEST FOR UNIFORMITY -

President Donald Trump and U.S. Congressional Republicans recently unveiled a “Unified Framework for Fixing Our Broken Tax Code” in a purported effort to make the federal tax code “simple, fair and easy to understand.” While federal tax reform has been a hot-button issue in many administrations, state tax reform should not be forgotten.

The driving force behind much of state tax reform in the past has been the goal of uniformity among the states. Spurred by the federal Willis Bill, many states adopted the Multistate Tax Compact (“Compact”) or enacted nearly identical legislation so that taxpayers might be comforted by a sense of consistency and predictability in their dealings with the states.