What's New
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report
December 16, 2019
Corporate Tax Avoidance in the First Year of the Trump Tax Law
Profitable Fortune 500 companies avoided $73.9 billion in taxes under the first year of the Trump-GOP tax law. The study includes financial filings by 379 Fortune 500 companies that were profitable in 2018; it excludes companies that reported a loss.
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report
August 28, 2019
TCJA by the Numbers, 2020
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), signed into law by President Trump at the end of 2017, includes provisions that dramatically cut taxes and provisions that offset a fraction of the revenue loss by eliminating or limiting certain tax breaks. This page includes estimates of TCJA’s impacts in 2020.
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blog
January 17, 2020
Why I've Joined the Fight for Tax Justice: Amy Hanauer
After years of watching tax policy increasingly leave communities behind, at ITEP I’ll have the chance to work with local, state and national partners on policy solutions. I’m prepared to push for a tax system that can better deliver economic, climate and racial justice; for a public sector that can prepare our kids and our grid for 2020 and beyond; and for an America that works for all of us, whether we were born in Nebraska or Hawaii, Detroit or Miami.
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blog
January 15, 2020
State Rundown 1/15: State Tax Proposals Are All Over the Map
State tax and budget debates have arrived in a big way, with proposals from every part of the country and everywhere on the spectrum from… -
ITEP Work in Action
January 15, 2020
Reforming Connecticut's Tax System: A Program to Strengthen Working- and Middle-Class Families
Connecticut Voices for Children released a report that examined the state’s income and wealth inequality and the state’s regressive tax system that exacerbates these inequalities.
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blog
January 15, 2020
The 2013 Biden-McConnell “Fiscal Cliff” Deal Shows Why the Next President Needs a New Approach to Taxes
Americans have long wanted more progressive tax policies and have told pollsters for years that they want wealthy individuals and big corporations to pay more, not less, in taxes. The only way forward is for lawmakers and the next president to take a dramatically different approach to tax policy.
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blog
January 14, 2020
White House Council of Economic Advisers Crows about Lowest-Income Americans Being Infinitesimally “Wealthier”
When the White House Council of Economic Advisors last week tweeted that the poorest 50 percent of Americans’ wealth is growing 3 times faster than the wealth of the top 1 percent, we were skeptical. As it turns out, the CEA’s tweet is a reminder that the poorest 50 percent wealth grew twice as fast during Barack Obama’s second term than it has under Trump, but to this day remains far below its pre-recession share and significantly less than what it was 30 years ago.
Who Pays? Sixth Edition
Poorest 20 percent pay a 50 percent higher effective state and local tax rate than the top 1 percent
ITEP’s sixth edition of Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax System in All 50 States finds that most state and local tax systems continue to tax low- and middle-income households at higher rates than the wealthy.
60 Profitable Fortune 500 Companies Avoided All Federal Income Taxes in 2018
For decades, profitable Fortune 500 companies have been able to manipulate the tax system to avoid paying even a dime in tax on billions of dollars in U.S. profits. This ITEP report provides the first comprehensive look at how the new corporate tax laws that took effect after the passage of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act affects the scale of corporate tax avoidance.
Understanding Major Federal Tax Credit Proposals
Federal lawmakers have announced at least five proposals to significantly expand existing tax credits or create new ones to benefit low- and moderate-income people. While these proposals vary a great deal and take different approaches, all would primarily benefit taxpayers in income groups who received only a small share of benefits from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
The Case for Extending State-Level Child Tax Credits to Those Left Out: A 50-State Analysis
11.5 million children live in poverty across the country. Lawmakers can tackle poverty in their home states with refundable state-level Child Tax Credits and reach families the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act left behind. Joint report with the Columbia Center on Poverty and Social Policy.
The Illusion of Race-Neutral Tax Policy
While ITEP has produced quantitative and qualitative research on class-based tax inequities, we, until recently, have ignored how tax policies affect communities based on race. Solely examining the tax law in the context of class misses a bigger-picture story about how the nation’s public policies not only perpetuate widening income and wealth inequality, they also preserve historic and current injustices that continue to allow white communities to build wealth while denying the same level of opportunity (and often suppressing it) to communities of color.
Impact
Whether it’s at the state or federal level, ITEP produces careful research and in-depth analyses of tax policies, and provides a voice for working people in tax policy debates. State advocates, policymakers and media often use our work to inform public discourse on current and proposed tax policies.
ITEP's Work in Action
Expertise
Federal Policy
ITEP’s federal policy resources provide quantitative and qualitative research and analysis on current tax policies, proposals, and reform options. Its distributional analyses highlight how tax proposals will affect low-income, middle-class and wealthy Americans nationally and in all 50 states.
Learn more about our Federal Policy work
State Policy
State taxes pay for essential public services, from education to health care. But the ideal design of a tax system is complicated. ITEP’s state policy resources offer insights into central issues, including the impact of state tax systems on individuals, families, and businesses. Its work also analyzes the sustainability of revenue sources over time.
Learn more about our State Policy work
Corporate Tax Research
ITEP’s corporate tax research examines the tax practices of Fortune 500 companies. Besides its corporate study on average effective tax rates paid by the nation’s largest, most profitable corporations, ITEP produces research on subjects such as offshore cash holdings, tax haven abuse, executive stock options and other tax loopholes.
Expert's View
We shouldn't wait for Washington to tax the rich. We can begin at the state level. Examining the federal policy landscape is a logical place to start, but state policymakers are missing a key opportunity if they don't join this national conversation and take a hard look at how their tax codes are affecting individuals and families across the income spectrum.
