Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families: Tax Cut Bill Filed: Plan Revised But Not Fixed

January 31, 2019

An analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) shows that the benefits of this proposal are even more heavily skewed towards the richest taxpayers than the previous version. That’s because there are no changes to the standard deduction, and all the significant changes in marginal tax rates only affect taxpayers with more […]

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State Rundown 1/31: Governors and Teachers Dominate Headlines, Much More in Fine Print

January 31, 2019 • By ITEP Staff

Gubernatorial addresses and the prospect of teacher strikes continued to take center stage in state fiscal news this week, as governors of Connecticut, Maryland, and Utah gave speeches that all included significant tax proposals. Meanwhile, teachers walked out in Virginia, and many other states debated school funding increases to avoid similar results. State policymakers have many other debates on their hands as well, including what to do with online sales tax revenue, how to cut property taxes without undermining schools, whether and how to legalize and tax cannabis, and whether to update gas taxes for infrastructure investments.

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Data for the Win: Advocating for Equitable State and Local Tax Policy (Webinar)

January 30, 2019 • By Aidan Davis, Dylan Grundman O'Neill, ITEP Staff, Meg Wiehe

Watch the video recording below for discussion on how ITEP’s distributional data can be part of an advocacy and communications strategy for securing state tax policies that raise enough revenue to fund various priorities. Outline includes a brief overview of findings from the sixth edition of Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States as well as insight from state advocates who use Who Pays? and other tax policy analyses research to pursue their legislative agendas.

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Why We Should Talk about Progressive Taxes Despite Billionaires’ Objections

January 30, 2019 • By Jenice Robinson

It was the tone-deaf remark heard ‘round the world. Last week on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross suggested that furloughed government employees who hadn’t been paid in a month could go to a bank and get a loan to make ends meet. This was not a gaffe. It’s hard to fathom how a […]

Washington Post: Warren’s Push for a Wealth Tax Could Be a Game Changer

January 29, 2019

Many on the right are already lashing out at Warren’s proposal. (On Fox News, it was preposterously likened to Venezuelan socialism.) Others have argued that it would be unconstitutional, a dubious claim that relies on a controversial 1895 Supreme Court ruling that, as the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy explains, “has been limited to […]

The Hill: Warren Stakes out Ground with Wealth Tax Proposal

January 28, 2019

Steve Wamhoff, director of tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said middle-income Americans are essentially already taxed on their wealth because most of it is in their homes, which come with property taxes. For the rich, however, homes tend to comprise a smaller percentage of their financial assets. Warren’s proposal would […]

Arizona Republic: Fact Check on Immigration

January 28, 2019

“It sounds extraordinarily high to me,” Meg Wiehe, deputy director at the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy told NBC. Read more

Chicago Sun-Times: 47th Ward Candidate for Alderman

January 28, 2019

We need more progressive revenue sources to help address our pension obligations. Our state’s combination of a flat income tax, high sales taxes, and heavy local reliance on property taxes is the basis for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy ranking of Illinois as having the fifth most regressive tax system in the United […]

Bloomberg: Warren’s Tax Proposal Aims at Assets of Wealthiest Americans

January 25, 2019

Her plan would do more to relieve inequality than New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s idea to raise the top income tax rate to 70 percent, according to Steve Wamhoff, the director of federal tax policy at the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. New research indicates that raising marginal income rates wouldn’t do […]

Washington Post: Elizabeth Warren to Propose Wealth Tax

January 25, 2019

Estimates of how much money can be raised by taxing the very rich vary dramatically. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank, published a report on Wednesday finding that a 1 percent wealth tax on the wealthiest 0.1 percent of Americans would raise $1.3 trillion over a decade. That would affect […]

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State Rundown 1/24: States Reflect on MLK’s Dream and Teacher Uprisings

January 24, 2019 • By ITEP Staff

This week, as Americans in every state celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day and reflected on his dream of peaceful protest and racial and economic justice, many eyes were on the teachers’ strike pressing for parts of this dream amid the “curvaceous slopes of California.” Governors and lawmakers in many states—including Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, South Carolina, and Wisconsin—discussed ways to raise pay for teachers and/or enhance education investments generally.

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Yes, It’s Time to Talk about Progressive Taxes, Even a Wealth Tax

January 24, 2019 • By Alan Essig

Earlier today, several news organizations reported that Sen. Elizabeth Warren is set to formally propose a federal wealth tax. Immediately after, social media was atwitter with comments that ranged from praise to predictable outcries of how will the wealthy cope if forced to pay more in taxes.

West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy: Fixing the Social Security Tax Bill with a Bottom-Up Tax Cut for Working Families

January 24, 2019

The fact that so few West Virginians pay income tax on their Social Security benefits should tell us that this is not a middle-class tax cut. As the graph and analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) below shows, the average tax change from eliminating the state income tax on Social Security […]

Wall Street Journal: Democrat Elizabeth Warren Proposes Wealth Tax

January 24, 2019

That is roughly 10 times the revenue that the current estate and gift taxes are projected to raise, but Ms. Warren’s “ultramillionaire-tax” proposal on the top 0.1% isn’t just about generating money to pay for government programs. It marks Democrats’ intense emphasis on inequality as the party tries to reclaim the White House in 2020. […]

CNBC: Elizabeth Warren proposes ‘wealth tax’ on Americans with more than $50 million in assets

January 24, 2019

While the 1 percent of Americans with the highest incomes receive about 20 percent of the total income in the United States, the top 1 percent of wealth holders collectively own more than 40 percent of the nation’s total wealth, according to a report published Wednesday by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy arguing […]

New York Times: Warren’s Plan Is Latest Push by Democrats to Raise Taxes on the Rich

January 24, 2019

Ms. Warren appears to be the first declared Democratic candidate to release a plan for a wealth tax, but the idea is quickly gaining steam among liberal activists and policy experts. Two think tanks, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, released wealth-tax-themed policy briefs this week in […]

Politico: Let’s Talk Wealth Tax

January 24, 2019

Steve Wamhoff at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy projects that a wealth tax could raise well over $1 trillion in a decade, and notes that wealth inequality far outpaces income inequality in the U.S. “The goals of raising revenue and addressing inequality will be difficult to achieve if federal tax policy continues to […]

Law360: Montana Mulls Statewide Sales Tax To Replace Property Taxes

January 24, 2019

Montana could become the first state in the nation to eliminate residential and commercial property taxes in exchange for creating a new 2.5 percent statewide sales tax...

NC Policy Watch: Report: Corporations Are Stiffing North Carolina on $373 Million in State Taxes

January 23, 2019

It turns out that state leaders can ensure that companies pay the proper amount of taxes on income generated from business conducted in their jurisdictions, but existing tax codes at the state level often allow loopholes for smart corporate tax lawyers to exploit. Corporations often use accounting sleights of hand to move income around within […]

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The U.S. Needs a Federal Wealth Tax

January 23, 2019 • By Steve Wamhoff

A federal wealth tax on the richest 0.1 percent of Americans is a viable approach for Congress to raise revenue and is one of the few approaches that could truly address rising inequality. As this report explains, an annual federal tax of only 1 percent on the portion of any taxpayer’s net worth exceeding the threshold for belonging to the wealthiest 0.1 percent (likely to be about $32.2 million in 2020) could raise $1.3 trillion over a decade.

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Thoughts about a Federal Wealth Tax and How It Could Raise Revenue, Address Income Inequality

January 23, 2019 • By Steve Wamhoff

Wealth inequality is much greater than income inequality. The 1 percent of Americans with the highest incomes receive about a fifth of the total income in the United States.  In contrast, the top 1 percent of wealth holders in the United States own 42 percent of the nation’s wealth, according to estimates from University of California at Berkley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.

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New Report Makes the Case for a Wealth Tax; Analysis Finds Such a Tax Could Raise More Than $1 Trillion Over a Decade

January 23, 2019 • By ITEP Staff

A federal wealth tax on the top 0.1 percent of households could raise significant tax revenue, curb growing economic inequality and help make the tax system fairer, a new report released today by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) finds.

Bloomberg: Cannabis Excise Tax Revenue Could Eclipse Alcohol Revenue in 2019

January 23, 2019

Excise tax revenue from marijuana sales is expected to surpass alcohol excise collections in 2019, according to the co-author of a new report. Carl Davis, a research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, noted in his report that state and local retail marijuana excise tax collections already rivaled alcohol tax collections in […]

Bloomberg: Economic Policy Group Makes Case for 1 Percent Wealth Tax

January 23, 2019

A 1 percent tax on taxpayers’ net worth over $32.2 million, starting in 2020, would raise $1.26 trillion over a decade, according to a new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Top 1 percent of wealth holders own 42 percent of U.S. wealth, report says, citing research from University of California, Berkeley […]

Politico Morning Tax: The Broad View on Pot

January 23, 2019

There’s been plenty of coverage of states legalizing recreational marijuana and then overestimating how much revenue they’ll see. But a new report from the liberal Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy notes that while legalized pot will likely never be the central component of a state’s revenue stream, there’s still plenty of potential there. For […]