Federal tax forms.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

It is getting easier to evade tax payments, FiveThirtyEight reports, and though anti-tax fervor is usually found among the GOP, for this shift Americans can thank Republicans and Democrats alike.

Specifically, we can thank their bitter partisanship. Following the passage of the GOP tax reform bill, blue states like California, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York are considering classifying some state or local taxes as charitable donations or a payroll tax that can be deducted from federal payments. The goal, as Connecticut's state revenue commissioner put it, is "a bit of payback for what I think was the utter disregard of the Congress for the impact of [the bill] on [these] states."

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.