Information Regarding the Effect of Applying the Representative Tax System to the General Revenue Sharing, Medicaid, and Vocational Education Programs

摘要

The Representative Tax System (RTS) is a statistical indicator of States' potential ability to raise tax revenues for the support of public services. This method of measuring States' revenue raising abilities was developed by the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. In the past, GAO has concluded that the RTS is a better measure of States' revenue raising potential than personal income (the most commonly used measure). GAO was asked to determine the likely impact of replacing personal income with the RTS on the distribution of Federal aid among the states in three formula based programs: General Revenue Sharing, Medicaid, and Vocational Education.