ITEP's Research Priorities
Multinational Corporations Would Receive $413 Billion in Tax Breaks from Congressional Repatriation Proposal
December 16, 2017 • By Richard Phillips
Rather than making companies pay what they owe, the final legislation reported out of conference proposes to tax accumulated offshore earnings at a rate lower than the 35 percent that they owe under current law. The final bill would tax offshore earnings being held as cash at a rate of 15.5 percent and tax all other offshore earnings at a rate of 8 percent. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, this proposal would allow U.S. companies to collectively pay about $339 billion in taxes on their offshore earnings, rather than the roughly $752 billion that they owe, meaning that…
Corporations and the Rich Get Everything They Want in Pending Tax Bill, Working People, Not So Much
December 15, 2017 • By Alan Essig
Nearly 30 years ago, Trump was well connected enough that he was able to go to Congress and testify about how tax changes affected his business. Ordinary working people are rarely lucky enough to talk about their personal experiences in front of a congressional committee. So if they want to make their views known about the catastrophe of 2017, it will have to be in election of 2018.
Final Tax Bill Reported to Provide Senator Rubio With Much Smaller Improvement for Children than He Demanded
December 15, 2017 • By Steve Wamhoff
The latest news on the GOP tax bill is that, in order to secure the vote of Senator Marco Rubio, Republican leaders have agreed to expand the child tax credit — but only by a fraction of the amount that Rubio initially demanded.
Associated Press: Will U.S. Companies Put Overseas Cash to Work? Don’t Bet on It.
December 15, 2017
The left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy notes that the lower one-time rate would amount to a corporate tax break worth $454 billion in the Senate bill and $458 billion in the House version. No sector would benefit more than tech companies. Collectively, they held $669 billion outside the U.S. at the end of […]
Politifact: Permanent tax cuts for the rich, eventually tax hikes for all middle-class families?
December 15, 2017
The net tax cuts going to the richest 1 percent increases from about 34 percent in 2019 to 47 percent in 2027 under the House bill, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. That’s partly because the tax cuts titled to the wealthiest are permanent. Read more
Boston Globe: What You Need to Know about the Most Recent Changes to the GOP Tax Bill
December 15, 2017
So when the standard deduction gets bigger, as it would under the Republican bill, itemizing will inevitably become more rare. Likely much more rare. Here in Massachusetts, the number of people expected to continue itemizing will drop from roughly 37 percent of filers to more like 13 percent, according to the Institute on Taxation and […]
Lawmakers should not allow monied interest to trump the voices of their constituents.
December 15, 2017 • By Alan Essig
You’d have to subscribe to the bizarre, Orwellian theory that middle-income people’s economic anxiety will somehow be assuaged by watching the rich grow richer to believe that the pending plan is good for working families. But we’re not too far down the rabbit hole. Principled lawmakers can heed the calls of their constituents and vote, […]
GOP Leaders Scrounge Up Money to Lower Top Tax Rate for the Rich But Not to Help Low-Income Working Families with Children
December 15, 2017 • By Meg Wiehe
Republican leaders who rejected a proposal to have corporations pay a single percentage point higher tax rate to benefit families with children have tapped the exact same source of savings to provide more breaks for the richest 1 percent of taxpayers. The table below compares the number and share of households nationally and in all 50-states who would benefit from the proposal to reduce taxes for working families with children versus the ”compromise” to cut the top individual tax rate -- below either the House or Senate version – to 37 percent for couples with incomes above $1 million.
Los Angeles Times: Let the Games Begin
December 14, 2017
In the compromise most recently reached by House and Senate Republicans, taxpayers would be able to deduct up to $10,000 in state and local taxes, including property taxes. That’s an improvement over some of the original proposals, which would have wiped out the deductions entirely, but not much of one. The share of California taxpayers […]
PBS: Working Long Hours Adds Hurdle for Undocumented Students
December 14, 2017
Currently, about 87 percent of the young people in the DACA program are employed, and America’s 1.3 million DACA-eligible youth, including those who haven’t enrolled, contribute an estimated $2 billion in state and local taxes, according to a report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. One of the express purposes of DACA, beyond […]
Reuters: Don’t Expect a Post-Card Size Tax Return
December 14, 2017
A key driver of this, according to independent analyzes, would be a proposed doubling of the standard deduction and a curtailment of the deduction for state and local tax payments. In combination, these two changes would mean that about 29 million people would no longer benefit from itemizing. So they would stop writing off their […]
ITEP Resources for the Tax Reform Debate
December 14, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
ITEP researchers have produced new reports and analyses that look at various pieces of the tax bill, including: the share of tax cuts that will go to foreign investors; how the plans would affect the number of taxpayers that take the mortgage interest deduction or write off charitable contributions, and remaining problems with the bill in spite of proposed compromises on state and local tax deductions.
Private Schools Donors Likely to Win Big from Expanded Loophole in Tax Bill
December 14, 2017 • By Carl Davis
For years, private schools around the country have been making an unusual pitch to prospective donors: give us your money, and you’ll get so many state and federal tax breaks in return that you may end up turning a profit. Under tax legislation being considered in Congress right now, that pitch is about to become even more persuasive.
Tax Bill Would Increase Abuse of Charitable Giving Deduction, with Private K-12 Schools as the Biggest Winners
December 14, 2017 • By Carl Davis
In its rush to pass a major rewrite of the tax code before year’s end, Congress appears likely to enact a “tax reform” that creates, or expands, a significant number of tax loopholes.[1] One such loophole would reward some of the nation’s wealthiest individuals with a strategy for padding their own bank accounts by “donating” to support private K-12 schools. While a similar loophole exists under current law, its size and scope would be dramatically expanded by the legislation working its way through Congress.[2]
State Rundown 12/13: Supermajority Laws Considered in Some States Even as They Confound Others
December 13, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
Supermajority requirements for tax increases are proving a major obstacle to responsible budgeting in Oklahoma, while ballot initiatives are being filed to alter or abolish Oregon‘s similar requirement, but a similar requirement is slowly advancing toward the ballot in Florida nonetheless. Displeasure with agricultural property taxes are spawning both a ballot initiative drive and a […]
Latest “Compromise” for Tax Plan Is Even Worse than Previous Proposals, Would Reduce the Plans’ “Losers” by Less than 17,000 Taxpayers
December 13, 2017 • By Meg Wiehe, Steve Wamhoff
Earlier this week, ITEP explained that two possible “compromises” to improve the Senate tax bill would accomplish very little other than make the plan more expensive. Incredibly, Republican leaders are now discussing a third possible “compromise” that is even worse — a further reduction in the top personal income tax rate to 37%. This would […]
Parents of College Students: The Tax Plans’ Losers that No One Is Talking About
December 13, 2017 • By Steve Wamhoff
Parents of college students or kids in their last years of high school are more likely to face a tax hike than others under the tax legislation moving through Congress. Higher education has entered the tax debate because the House bill (but not the Senate bill) would repeal several provisions that make college and graduate education more accessible. But little thought has been given to how the tax bills would affect the parents of college students in more direct ways and make it difficult for them to finance college for their kids. If tax legislation were allowed a reasonable number…
ITEP Statement on Alabama’s Special Election
December 13, 2017 • By Alan Essig
What voters want—the people who put elected officials in office—matters. Members of Congress should take pause before proceeding with their profoundly unpopular tax bill that the vast majority of voters have said lawmakers should not pass.
All I Want for Christmas is a Clean DREAM Act
December 13, 2017 • By Misha Hill
As 2017 draws to close, Congress has yet to take legislative action to protect Dreamers. The young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children, and are largely working or in school, were protected by President Obama’s 2012 executive action, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). But in September, President Trump announced that he would end DACA in March 2018. Instead of honoring the work authorizations and protection from deportation that currently shields more than 685,000 young people, President Trump punted their lives and livelihood to a woefully divided Congress which is expected to take up legislation…
Updated Tax Contributions of Young Undocumented Immigrants
December 13, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
In September 2017, US Citizenship and Immigration Services released updated enrollment data for the program Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The updated data included estimates of the number of former DACA enrollees that were now legal permanent residents and those that failed to reapply or their reapplication was denied. The table below provides updated estimates of their tax contributions.
Who Is “America First” Under the Tax Plan? The Rich First, Foreign Investors Second, Then the Rest of Us.
December 12, 2017 • By Steve Wamhoff
In his inaugural speech, President Trump told the world that Washington would be driven by a principle of “America First.” But the tax plans moving through Congress only put the richest Americans first. Everyone else comes after foreign investors.
Treasury’s 1-Page Memo Reasserts False Claims that Tax Cuts Largely Pay for Themselves — But Only When Accompanied by Spending Cuts
December 12, 2017 • By Steve Wamhoff
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin claimed for weeks that his department would release a study showing that the $1.5 trillion tax cut moving through Congress would “pay for itself.” On Monday he released a one-page memo that asserts, without evidence, that economic growth resulting from President Trump’s policies would raise enough revenue to more than offset the costs of the tax cuts.
“Compromises” Under Discussion for the State and Local Tax Deduction Do Not Fix Flawed Tax Bills
December 10, 2017 • By Meg Wiehe, Steve Wamhoff
Republicans in Congress are reported to be considering two versions of a change they claim would “improve” the current bills by making them more generous to residents of higher-taxed states. As illustrated by these estimates, the reality is that these proposals would make little difference on those states and taxpayers hit hardest.
Even with Potential SALT Compromises, Senate Bill Forces California and New York to Shoulder a Larger Share of Federal Taxes While Texas, Florida, and Other States Will Pay Less
December 10, 2017 • By Meg Wiehe, Steve Wamhoff
The Senate tax bill, with or without either of the compromises that could be added to it, would shift personal income taxes away from Florida and Texas to states like California and New York, which are already paying a high share relative to their populations.
Boston Globe: Look our Wealthy Boston Suburbs, Here Comes the GOP Tax Bill
December 8, 2017
Most Massachusetts taxpayers would see their taxes go down in 2019, by an average of over $2,000. But a study by the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy predicts that roughly 200,000 Massachusetts households earning between $83,000 and $333,000 would face higher taxes, with the average increase in 2019 approaching $1,500. Read more
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