Enormous amounts of presidential election messaging and coverage will unfurl between now and November 5. You will surely hear a lot about abortion, immigration, and inflation. You will hear about a fight for the future of American democracy. Even more likely, you’ll hear about polls, strategies to attract working-class and minority voters, or what one candidate said or tweeted or posted, or designated a surrogate to say or tweet or post. Oh, and court cases. Lots and lots of court cases. What you might not hear as much about are the stakes of the election’s outcome for all the money in the country. On Tax Day, of all days, it seems like a good time to lay that out.
Steve Wamhoff
Steve Wamhoff is ITEP’s director of federal tax policy. In this role, he is responsible for setting the organization’s federal research and policy agenda. He is the author of numerous reports and analyses of federal tax policies as well as in-depth policy briefs that outline how the federal income tax and corporate tax code can be overhauled to improve tax fairness.
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media mention April 15, 2024 The American Prospect: The $6 Trillion Decision
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media mention March 7, 2024 Washington Post: Biden: Ban Deductions for Firms Paying Executives More Than $1 Million
President Biden will call for blocking corporations from deducting the costs of paying salaries over $1 million from their federal taxes in Thursday night’s State of the Union address, part of populist-oriented… -
media mention March 4, 2024 The Guardian: Private Equity Prepares for a Boon From Congress
Some of largest and most profitable companies in the US are primed to save billions of dollars from a congressional tax deal that critics say gives “billions in tax credits to the biggest corporations while giving pennies to middle-class children and families”. And private equity funds could be among the deal’s biggest beneficiaries, a Guardian analysis suggests. The tax cuts passed the House of Representatives at the end of January as part of an agreement that pairs handouts for businesses with a moderate expansion of the child tax credit. The Senate could vote on the bill over the coming weeks, and the White House has indicated that Joe Biden would sign it into law.
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media mention March 4, 2024 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: PNC Bank, PPG Industries Among Companies Paying Less Than the Federal Tax Rate
WASHINGTON — More than a dozen Pennsylvania companies — including a handful in the Pittsburgh area — paid less than the 21% federal corporate income tax rate from 2018 to 2022, according to a study released Thursday by a progressive research group.
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media mention February 21, 2024 The Hill: Trump Tax Cuts on the Line in 2024 Election
The 2017 Trump tax cuts are on the line in the election this year, with Republicans hoping a sweep of Congress and the White House will allow them to extend the former president’s signature law. Democrats opposed the law when Trump was in power but have supported extending certain cuts, such as the decreased tax rates for people making less than $400,000 a year. Democrats do not want a blanket extension, which would cost nearly $4 trillion over the next decade.
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media mention January 17, 2024 Yahoo Finance: Lawmakers Ink a Bipartisan Tax Deal to Expand the Child Tax Credit
A powerful bipartisan duo announced a significant tax deal Tuesday that would combine a temporary expansion of the child tax credit with long-sought provisions for the business world. Read more. -
media mention January 17, 2024 Axios: Bipartisan Deal Would Expand Child Tax Credit, Lift Half-Million Children Out of Poverty
Congressional committee chairs reached a deal Tuesday that would expand the federal child tax credit, after three years of pushing by Democrats and progressives. Read more. -
media mention January 12, 2024 The Guardian: US Corporations Push to Roll Back Trump-Era Tax Policies They Once Endorsed
An agreement is emerging that ties the corporate tax breaks to an increase in support for vulnerable American families. Read more. -
media mention January 12, 2024 Washington Post: Behind Closed Doors, Trump Eyes Second Round of Corporate tax Cuts
Donald Trump’s campaign team says the former president would prioritize cutting taxes for working-class families and small businesses if he returns to the White House. But privately, Trump has told… -
media mention January 11, 2024 Washington Post: Congress Nears Deal to Partially Restore Biden’s Expanded Child Tax Credit
Congressional lawmakers are closing in on a deal that would partially revive President Biden’s expanded tax credit for lower-income families in exchange for extending tax incentives favored by business interests,… -
media mention October 23, 2023 TIME: How Giant Corporations Can Still Get Out of Paying Taxes
For decades, multinational corporations—especially those based in the U.S.—have funneled billions of dollars in profits to tax havens, earning even more money for their shareholders. Read more. -
media mention June 26, 2023 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The Next Tax Debates are Heating Up in Congress
Call it the battle of the tax cuts. Western Pennsylvania’s lawmakers are on opposite sides as the U.S. House debates whether — and how — to cut taxes. Read more. -
media mention June 15, 2023 Salon: GOP Follows Debt Fight with Bill to Give $24 billion Tax Cut to the Top 1 Percent
After spending months threatening to tank the economy over the federal deficit, Republicans have unveiled a set of new tax proposals that would cost the government billions of dollars —… -
media mention May 22, 2023 Washington Post: How California’s Wild Weather Brought the Debt-Ceiling ‘X Date’ Closer
As President Biden and lawmakers scramble to strike a debt ceiling deal before the government runs out of money, each day counts — to the tune of about $17 billion. That’s how… -
media mention March 10, 2023 MarketWatch: Biden’s Tax Hikes for the Rich are Unlikely to Pass. The Bigger Debate: Trump-era Tax Cuts that End in 2025.
For five years, most Americans have seen lower income-tax rates and tapped a bigger standard deduction, but without congressional action before the end of 2025, the rules could still revert… -
media mention February 7, 2023 Wall Street Journal: Top GOP Tax Legislator Says He’ll Boost Workers, Probe Companies
Rep. Jason Smith (R., Mo.), the House’s new top tax writer, is promoting an approach he says would favor working-class Americans over large corporations, a shift in tone from his predecessors that… -
media mention October 7, 2022 Financial Times: Wall Street Finds a Tax Silver Lining in Down Market
Wall Street banks have found a silver lining in this year’s market rout: making money by helping wealthy clients sell some investments at a loss to lighten their tax bills.… -
media mention August 19, 2022 Newsweek: Stimulus Check Update: Child Tax Credit Bill Faces Uphill Battle
Conversations on reviving the expanded child tax credit—which the White House credited as the main driver behind bringing child poverty to record lows in 2021—might not be finished yet. Read… -
media mention August 15, 2022 Marketwatch: Here’s How Private Equity Got Relief in Democrats’ Healthcare, Climate and Tax Package
The bipartisan duo of Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and John Thune helped private equity firms escape tens of billions of dollars in potential tax increases and instead walk away with relief… -
media mention August 11, 2022 Washington Post: With Sinema’s Help, Private Equity Firms Win Relief from Proposed Tax Hikes
Senate Democrats agreed Sunday to protect firms owned by the private equity industry from a new minimum tax on billion-dollar corporations, bowing to pressure from Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who… -
media mention August 2, 2022 Bloomberg Tax Op-Ed: Manchin-Schumer Deal Takes Sensible Aim at Corporate Tax Dodging
Revenue-raising provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act would bring long-overdue fairness to a tax system that for decades has been eroded by special breaks for the powerful and well-connected, says… -
media mention July 28, 2022 The Washington Post: How the Schumer-Manchin Climate Bill Might Impact You and Change the U.S.
“This would certainly be the biggest corporate tax increase in decades,” said Steve Wamhoff, a tax expert at Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “We’ve had decades of tax policy… -
media mention April 27, 2022 Bloomberg: Musk’s Untaxed Wealth Opens a Path to Twitter, Riling Democrats
“If you look at Musk’s ‘income’ as defined by our tax code, you see that the guy is really rich, but not rich enough to buy Twitter,” Steve Wamhoff, the… -
media mention April 19, 2022 McClatchy: A Republican senator has a plan to ‘Rescue America.’ Here’s what it could cost Californians
But it’s the lowest wage earners who would pay more taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center reached the same conclusion. The… -
media mention March 29, 2022 Associated Press: How Would a Billionaire Tax Work?
Steve Wamhoff, director of tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, says the Democrats “have got this reconciliation vehicle that they can use that to pass legislation.”…