What state and local tax instruments are most fair? Least fair? 

The answer depends, of course, on one's conception of fairness. If one believes (as I do) that individuals with higher incomes should pay a higher percentage of their income in tax, then the fairest tax instruments are progressive individual income taxes. With the corporate income tax, some of the burden falls on workers -- no one is sure how much. It's also hard to know who exactly bears the burden of property taxes: some (but how much?) of the tax will be capitalized into property values and rents. And it's very hard to implement a progressive tax on consumption (or sales) at the state or local level.

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