ITEP's Research Priorities
Five Years in, Cannabis Tax Haul Rivals or Exceeds Alcohol Taxes in Many States
January 23, 2019 • By ITEP Staff
A first-of-its-kind look at state excise taxes on legal cannabis sales finds that taxing the substance can be a meaningful source of state revenue but cautions that achieving sustainable revenues over time will be difficult under the price-based tax structures adopted in most states thus far.
Taxing Cannabis
January 23, 2019 • By Carl Davis, Misha Hill, Richard Phillips
State policy toward cannabis is evolving rapidly. While much of the debate around legalization has rightly focused on potential health and criminal justice impacts, legalization also has revenue implications for state and local governments that choose to regulate and tax cannabis sales. This report describes the various options for structuring state and local taxes on cannabis and identifies approaches currently in use. It also undertakes an in-depth exploration of state cannabis tax revenue performance and offers a glimpse into what may lie ahead for these taxes.
Cannabis Tax Debates are Ramping Up; Here’s What We’ve Learned from Five Years of Cannabis Taxation Thus Far
January 23, 2019 • By Carl Davis
This year lawmakers in Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont will all be debating the taxation of recreational cannabis. A new ITEP report reviews the track record of recreational cannabis taxes thus far and offers recommendations for structuring cannabis taxes to achieve stable revenue growth over the long haul.
Time to restore fairness to the personal income tax and break the boom-or-bust cycle
January 22, 2019
Our citizen legislators have lots of choices to make when they meet for the annual legislative session every January – how to prioritize spending on public services like education, health care and public safety, which laws to enact, and whether to make changes to our state’s tax code.
Maui Now: Report: Hawaii Could Recover $38M Lost to Corporate Tax Loopholes
January 19, 2019
Reforms to end corporate tax loopholes in Hawai‘i could reduce lost tax revenue and bring in an additional $38 million to the state, according to a new report released on Friday by The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The report called “A Simple Fix for a $17 Billion Loophole,” takes a look at complicated […]
State Rundown 1/18: Governors’ Speeches Kick Off State Fiscal Debates
January 18, 2019 • By ITEP Staff
Gubernatorial speeches and budget proposals dominated state fiscal news this week, as governors proposed a wide array of policies including positive reforms such as Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) enhancements in CALIFORNIA, a capital gains tax on wealthy households in WASHINGTON, and investments in education in several states. Proposals to exempt more retirement income from tax, particularly for veterans, are a common theme so far this year, having been raised in multiple states including MARYLAND, MICHIGAN, and SOUTH CAROLINA. And NEW JERSEY became the fourth state with a $15 minimum hourly wage. Those wishing to better understand and influence important debates about equitable tax policy should mark their…
The Daily Chronicle: Senate Hears Testimony on Governor’s Proposed Capital Gains Tax
January 18, 2019
Last fall, a report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy showed that the lowest 20 percent of earners pay almost 18 percent of family income in taxes, while the top one percent pay just three percent in taxes. Multiple people testified that Washington’s “upside-down” tax system needs to be changed. Read more
Oregonian: Big corporations moving profits offshore costs Oregon $175 million a year: study
January 18, 2019
“Every dollar that we allow big corporations not to pay, someone else has to pick it up,” said Richard Phillips, a senior analyst with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and co-author of the study. “This is not a victimless crime. This is taking money out of the pockets of small business.” Read more
Beacon Journal/Ohio.com Editorial Board: How Ohio’s Tax System Puts a Heavier Burden on the Poor
January 17, 2019
The Institute for Taxation & Economic Policy performed the analysis for Policy Matters. Consider that those Ohio families with annual incomes below $19,000 paid an average 12.3 percent of their income in state and local taxes. For those in the middle three quintiles, with incomes from $19,000 to $91,800 a year, the burden holds steady, […]
A Simple Fix for a $17 Billion Loophole: How States Can Reclaim Revenue Lost to Tax Havens
January 17, 2019 • By Richard Phillips
Enacting Worldwide Combined Reporting or Complete Reporting in all states, this report calculates, would increase state tax revenue by $17.04 billion dollars. Of that total, $2.85 billion would be raised through domestic Combined Reporting improvements, and $14.19 billion would be raised by addressing offshore tax dodging (see Table 1). Enacting Combined Reporting and including known tax havens would result in $7.75 billion in annual tax revenue, $4.9 billion from income booked offshore.
How States Can Help Shut Down Tax Havens by Cracking Down on Profit Shifting
January 17, 2019 • By Richard Phillips
A core problem with our corporate income tax laws at the federal and state levels is that they allow companies to use accounting gimmicks to shift significant amounts of their profits into low or zero-tax jurisdictions. Federal lawmakers had an opportunity to address this with the 2017 tax law, but they failed to do so, and, in fact, the law may incentivize more offshore tax avoidance. State lawmakers, however, can buck the federal trend and crack down on profit shifting themselves.
Who Pays and Why It Matters | MECEP Policy Insights Conference Keynote Address
January 16, 2019 • By Aidan Davis
States have broad discretion in how they secure the resources to fund education, health care, infrastructure, and other priorities important to communities and families. Aidan Davis with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy will offer a national perspective on state-level approaches to funding public investments and the implications of those approaches on tax fairness and revenue adequacy, and their economic outcomes. She’ll also provide insight on what’s in store for 2019 among the states.
Missouri Budget Project: Senate Tax Bills Provide Unfair Giveaways, Leave Communities Reeling
January 16, 2019
An analysis by the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy found that 91% of the tax cut would flow to the wealthiest 20% of Missourians.
Maine Center for Economic Policy: The Prosperity Budget
January 15, 2019
Where State of Working Maine 2018 investigated the nature of work in the modern economy and made recommendations to reaffirm our values of fairness and respect in the workplace, the Prosperity Budget examines the opportunity to leverage state budget and tax policy to build a stronger economy where every Mainer has an equal opportunity to […]
Gov. Cuomo Has the Right Idea on How to Tax Recreational Cannabis
January 15, 2019 • By ITEP Staff
Following is a statement by Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, regarding the cannabis tax structure unveiled by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
MassBudget: 14 Options for Raising Progressive Revenue
January 14, 2019
People in Massachusetts seek to live in communities that provide a high quality of life for their family and neighbors. We value good schools, police and fire protection, libraries and parks, smooth roads and reliable transit, and supports to help families struggling through tough times. A community’s day-to-day well-being and its long-term prosperity are built […]
Hartford Business Journal: Major policies opposed by businesses loom in Democrat-controlled legislature
January 14, 2019
When Rep. Josh Elliott (D-Hamden) calls Connecticut’s tax system regressive, it’s not just an opinion. The Democrat is citing a 2014 report by the state’s own tax department, that uses a scoring method called the Suits Index to measure the impact of Connecticut’s nine major state and local taxes. The Department of Revenue Services concluded […]
Oregonian: Profits Double, Tax Payments Fall at Nike, Attracting Attention of EU Regulators
January 12, 2019
By the end of 2017, Nike had $12.2 billion in permanently reinvested earnings. The company estimates that had it dispensed with the foreign strategy and kept that money in the U.S., the taxes would total $4.1 billion. In other words, Nike saved $4.1 billion by employing the overseas tax strategies, said Matt Gardner, a senior […]
Policy Matters Ohio: New Research Underlines Need to Overhaul State Tax Code
January 11, 2019
Ohio’s upside-down tax system takes an especially heavy toll on black and Latino residents. That’s the finding of new research from the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy (ITEP), a national nonprofit research group with a sophisticated model of the tax system, that was released today by Policy Matters Ohio. Read more
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: State Finance Official Says 200,000 Filers Would See Tax Increase in Plan’s Current Form; Governor Wants Fix
January 11, 2019
Rep. Lane Jean, R-Magnolia, said he started digging last month into a written analysis of the plan given by Lisa Christiansen Gee, senior policy analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy in Washington, D.C. The analysis, given to the task force last fall, suggested some taxpayers would pay more in net income taxes […]
State Rundown 1/10: States Should Resolve to Pursue Equitable Tax Options
January 10, 2019 • By ITEP Staff
This week we released a handy guide of policy options for Moving Toward More Equitable State Tax Systems, and are pleased to report that many state lawmakers are promoting policies that are in line with our recommendations. For example, Puerto Rico lawmakers recently enacted a targeted EITC-like credit for working families, and leaders in Virginia and elsewhere are working toward similar improvements. Arkansas residents also saw their tax code improve as laws reducing regressive consumption taxes and enhancing income tax progressivity just went into effect. And there is still time for governors and legislators pushing for regressive income tax cuts…
The Intellectualist: Study: Tax Cuts For The Top 1% Cost More Than Entire Food Stamp Program
January 9, 2019
According to estimates from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the richest 1 percent of households, those with incomes higher than $607,090, stand to receive a total tax cut of more than $84 billion in 2019 alone. To put this number in perspective, in 2019, the total cost of nutrition assistance benefits paid through […]
Moving Toward More Equitable State Tax Systems
January 9, 2019 • By Dylan Grundman O'Neill
New and returning policymakers have a tremendous opportunity to improve their constituents’ lives and their states’ economies through tax policy. This report distills the findings of “Who Pays?” into policy recommendations that can serve as a guide to new lawmakers, advocates, and others seeking to improve their state’s tax codes. It explains the importance of favoring taxes on income and wealth over taxes on consumption, the value of certain targeted tax benefits for families living in poverty, the need to abandon ineffective, unnecessary tax subsidies for high-income households, and the promise of bold new options for improving the regressive distributional…
A New Quick-Start Guide to “Who Pays?”
January 9, 2019 • By Dylan Grundman O'Neill
For those looking to start improving on these inequitable tax systems today, we now also offer a helpful companion to “Who Pays?” called "Moving Toward More Equitable State Tax Systems." This new report distills the findings of “Who Pays?” into a set of policy recommendations – from the foundational to the aspirational – that residents of every state can draw from and start work on now.
The Root: Trump Goes on National TV to Talk about His Dumb Wall
January 8, 2019
His assertion that undocumented immigrants create a strain on our nation is basically refuted in a 2017 report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (pdf) which shows undocumented immigrants pay an estimated $11.74 billion in state and local taxes. Additionally, 50 percent of undocumented immigrants file federal tax returns using Individual Tax Identification […]
Institute on Taxation
and Economic Policy
ITEP is a non-profit, non-partisan tax policy organization. We conduct rigorous analyses of tax and economic proposals and provide data-driven recommendations to shape equitable and sustainable tax systems.
Subscribe to ITEP Emails
Tax research and policy news in your inbox.
Promote Fair Tax Policy
Your gift to ITEP promotes tax justice. With your help, we do research that supports taxing millionaires and billionaires, taxing big corporations and raising revenue for the things our people, our communities and our planet need.
Together, we can create a country with more economic justice, more racial justice, more climate justice… and more tax justice.