Finance
Managing public finance has become a demanding aspect of state and local government, especially as economic health fluctuates and outside forces create revenue instability. Articles on taxes, budgets, pensions and bonds help to bring insight to finance management at the state and local level.
The rules vary widely from state to state, and they do little to prevent policymakers from pushing costs into the future unsustainably. A couple of states are trying to take a longer-term view.
New York’s Lockport City School District has facial and object recognition that it can no longer use after the state changed the rules. A school board trustee thinks the district should get a refund for the $1.4 million purchase.
Reporting by ProPublica revealed that TurboTax’s host company, Intuit, had been deceiving customers into paying for what could have been free. The IRS has responded by dropping a long-standing agreement not to compete with industry by developing its own tax filing software.
The financial system for any major organization is complex and that includes state and local government. Efforts to expand the capabilities of finance through new technology can lead to different results as these two examples show.
By building on the data they gave away in the HQ2 competition, they can support the real engine of job growth: entrepreneurship
Allowing hundreds of municipalities to impose their own ridesharing taxes is a terrible idea. There's a simpler and better way to make sure these companies pay taxes that’s beneficial to both states and localities.
