Thread by @IAmNickReynolds

The Legislature's Revenue Committee discussing the state's tax structure this morning.

Revenue Director Dan Noble says the state's tax structure is a regressive one: "Our tax structure is unstable. We base... more than half of our economy on price of commodities."

We also have the "second lowest" tax burden for a family of four in the United States, he said, and that our current tax structure could actually hinder the state's growth, due to the high cost of services and a thin tax base.

Watch live here:

Notes state and county officials are limited in their taxing authority. And tax administration is confusing.

"We spend probably more time than anything else appearing before the State Board of Equalization and the Supreme Court associated with mineral issues."

Noble said as things stand right now, an income tax -- particularly one just impacting incomes over $200,000 -- would be expensive to implement.

Talking about taxing services, which we've looked at before and what states like S. Dakota do, but Noble says things have evolved.

Says cryptocurrency is not a tangible asset that can be taxed.

Yin asking about other states and whether they tax remote workers, and whether we could consider that. Noble said some states will create a temporary nexus for some remote workers, but the real issue is based around where people own property.

If you work in AZ for six months out a property, AZ collects. But what if you live in Wyoming and work for a firm in Oregon? Noble says Wyoming, because that's where the work is actually being performed.

Noble says S. Dakota "taxes the most services, period" and could be a good model for Wyoming to adopt if they choose to go in that direction. Adds there's revenue to be had in the digital realm.

"Is it something that should be looked at? It could be, certainly."

Taxing online sales was a game-changer, Noble said. At one point he said we had 27,000 vendors in the state. We're approaching 48,000 registered right now.

"It has been a substantial change, what we perceive this as the digital world," he said.

Sen. James asking about moving to a cash-based budget and basing appropriations on population and revenue generation. But that's tough... our economy is pretty volatile, and projections are used to accommodate that.

James' idea is to implement a user fee for our utilities (which would have to apply across state lines... that's tough) using the cash budget to balance out the volatility.

Noble said that's basically what we do already, and it wouldn't deal with volatility at all.

"If we really wanted to look at raising revenue would we not want to look to encourage private sector businesses to come to Wyoming instead of raising taxes,
since that's where the revenue comes from?" James asks.

We already have the most business-friendly structure in the US.

"If taxes are the only criteria that you use for bringing businesses to the state, they should be here," Noble said.

James notes Texas and Florida attract businesses to their state, and we should look at what they do.

Here's an illustration of tax volatility in Wyoming. Compare Teton County (little mineral wealth) to Converse County (relies heavily on it.)

And here's Campbell -- the "Energy Capital" of the U.S.

And check out our overall trends. Some areas -- like sales -- are growing despite mineral performance. However, Noble says it's clear our reliance on minerals have a noticeable impact across the state's economy.

Mineral wealth is a huge part of our property tax base as well. But that has been falling significantly... largely due to the valuation of the minerals on those lands, Noble said.

What does that mean? Less money for schools. Noble again:

Jennings said sectors other than minerals "have never made the kind of money that minerals have made, and they never will." Said other states don't have the same dynamic, hard to compare.

Wyoming has studied its tax capacity, and there's room to grow. wyoleg.gov/InterimCommitt…

LSO fiscal analyst Dean Temte, who wrote that one-pager, notes Wyoming is surrounded by states that grew "a lot" over the last decade, while we did not.

wyofile.com/analysis-four-…

Our GDP is also closely in-line with that of the state's population. (Correction: these are real GDP dollars indexed to inflation.) But these can vary... just look at places like MT and CO.

Temte said that our real GDP has actually declined substantially since 2012, while other states have seen major increases. Utah saw an increase of 31%. Colorado's grew by 28%, as did Idaho. Nebraska grew by 12%, good for 15th. N. Dakota's grew by 0.8%.

Interesting note from today's latest financial trends from the Wyoming Department of Administration and Information... the economy's brightest spots last month were likely due to the federal stimulus checks. eadiv.state.wy.us/Insight/WY_Ins…

CC @JStein_WaPo

Looking at CO's tax structure. They have many more streams, Temte notes. A light corporate tax, but bigger tobacco taxes, commensurate property taxes, and... a marijuana tax.

They also have a lot more balance than we do.

Idaho has even greater balance to their tax structure. Montana is also a pretty interesting one.