ITEP's Research Priorities
KTVZ: Wyden Unveils Tax Reform Proposal
September 12, 2019
Alan Essig, Executive Director, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy: “The term ‘anti-deferral accounting’ probably means little to most Americans now, but the idea, proposed by Senator Wyden today, has the potential to transform our nation’s tax system. Working Americans pay taxes on their income every year. But for very wealthy families, a great deal […]
Why Are Ideologues Trying to Downplay Poverty and Economic Inequality?
September 12, 2019 • By Jenice Robinson
Our elected officials should pause and check the pulse of the nation. The public is aware of the great income divide and likely isn’t keen on an agenda that would use sleight of hand to “reduce” poverty and spend less on domestic programs—particularly when that agenda is in tandem with using the tax code to further boost income for the wealthy.
State Rundown 9/12: Work Continues to Flip the Script on Backwards Tax Codes
September 12, 2019 • By ITEP Staff
Residents of several states are spending their palindrome week reading ballot initiatives forwards and backwards to decide whether or not to support them, including measures to improve education funding in California and Idaho, allow Alaska and Colorado to invest more in public services, and constitutionally prohibit income taxation in Texas. New Jersey lawmakers are giving the same thorough treatment to the state’s corporate tax subsidies. And advocates in Chicago, Illinois, have a bold proposal to flip the script on upside-down taxes there. But devotees of good policy and honest government in North Carolina won’t want to re-read yesterday’s news in…
Sen. Wyden’s Anti-Deferral Accounting Proposal Could Be a Game-Changer
September 12, 2019 • By Steve Wamhoff
Today, Sen. Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, fulfilled a promise he made several months ago to release a proposal that could fundamentally transform how the U.S. taxes capital gains of the wealthy. The paper he released today proposes “anti-deferral accounting” to ensure that wealthy people are taxed on all of […]
Senator Releases Plan That Would Increase Capital Gains Tax Rates, Close Loopholes
September 12, 2019 • By Alan Essig
Following is a statement from Alan Essig, executive director for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, on the paper released today by the Senate Finance Committee’s ranking Democrat, Ron Wyden, calling for anti-deferral accounting, which could dramatically reform the way the U.S. taxes capital gains.
Comments on Senate Finance Committee Paper on Anti-Deferral Accounting
September 12, 2019 • By Steve Wamhoff
Comments on Senate Finance Committee Paper on Anti-Deferral Accounting
New Report: A Chicago EITC Would Benefit up to 1 Million Chicago Families
September 12, 2019 • By Lisa Christensen Gee
Media contact Report outlines policy options for Chicago Resilient Families Initiative Task Force Recommendations A new report reveals that a city-level, Chicago Earned Income Tax Credit would boost the economic security of 546,000 to 1 million of the city’s working families, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) and Economic Security for Illinois said today. […]
Promoting Greater Economic Security Through A Chicago Earned Income Tax Credit: Analyses of Six Policy Design Options
September 12, 2019 • By Lisa Christensen Gee
A new report reveals that a city-level, Chicago Earned Income Tax Credit would boost the economic security of 546,000 to 1 million of the city’s working families. ITEP produced a cost and distributional analysis of six EITC policy designs, which outlines the average after-tax income boost for families at varying income levels. The most generous policy option would increase after-tax income for more than 1 million working families with an average benefit, depending on income, ranging from $898 to $1,426 per year.
The Half Sheet: Over 1 Million Virginia Taxpayers Expected to Miss Out on Refund Checks
September 11, 2019
If everything goes according to schedule, Virginia’s tax department will begin issuing $110 refund checks – $220 for joint filers – to Virginia taxpayers beginning next week and continuing through the first half of October. The checks are the result of tax legislation signed into law earlier this year. Unfortunately, not every tax filer will […]
Census Numbers Show the Power of the Tax Code to Direct Resources to Low-Income Families
September 10, 2019 • By Jessica Schieder
Refundable federal tax credits, including the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC), lifted 7.9 million people out of poverty in 2018. This latest analysis from the U.S. Census Bureau demonstrates the power of federal programs to alleviate poverty and help low-income families keep up with the increasing cost of living.
How Tax Policy Can Help Mitigate Poverty, Address Income Inequality
September 10, 2019 • By ITEP Staff
Analysts at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy have produced multiple recent briefs and reports that provide insight on how current and proposed tax policies affect family economic security and income inequality.
Major Federal Tax Credit Proposals
September 10, 2019 • By ITEP Staff
In 2019, several federal lawmakers have introduced tax credit 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 build off the success of the EITC and CTC and target their benefits to families in the bottom 60 percent of the income distribution who have an annual household income of $70,000 or less.
Detroit Free Press: Trump’s Tax Cuts Are Helping the Wealthy. Here’s How to Help Everyone Else
September 8, 2019
This stark bait-and-switch was on full display with the 2017 “Tax Cuts and Jobs” Act (TCJA). Billed as a way to help workers and create jobs, the federal tax law really helped wealthy residents and corporations get richer. In Michigan for 2019, more than half of the tax benefits of the TCJA went to the […]
OpEd News: Another Cruel–Irony The Homeless Pay for their Homelessness
September 7, 2019
A cursory look at the tax numbers blow the conservative’s tax mythmaking apart. A 2017 study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that the poorest of the poor, that’s those with annual income under $19,000 plop in more that 10 percent of the federal tax dollars. Toss in millions more to that […]
How Do State Tax Sales of Over-the-Counter Medication?
September 6, 2019 • By ITEP Staff
While most states levy general sales taxes on items that consumers purchase every day, those taxes often contain carveouts for some necessities such as rent, groceries, and medicine. Prescription drugs, for instance, are currently exempt from state sales tax in 44 of the 45 states levying such taxes (Illinois is the only exception, charging a […]
Forbes: Corporate America’s Promise To Focus Less On Profits Will Ring Hollow If We Can’t Tax The Rich
September 6, 2019
As Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, puts it in a blog, the joint statement likely reflects more of a fear of shifting political winds rather than some benevolent, introspective change of heart. “The truth is, the new statement reads like something Dr. Frankenstein might have written when […]
The American Prospect: The Republican War on the Capital Gains Tax
September 6, 2019
Also like George W. Bush, Trump has governed like a bog-standard conservative, with only tax cuts and deregulation to show for his first few years. Only one major piece of legislation is likely to get Trump’s signature in his entire first term: the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The effects of those cuts were […]
Common Dreams: Corporations Getting to Zero With GOP’s Inside Help on Tax Avoidance
September 5, 2019
Given the lack of transparency in corporate reporting, it is hard to tell how Aircastle’s strategies compare to those used by other companies. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) reported in April, based on 10-Ks submitted to the SEC, that 60 of the Fortune 500 had zero or negative federal income tax payments […]
Why Local Jurisdictions’ Heavy Reliance on Fines and Fees Is a Tax Policy Issue
September 4, 2019 • By Meg Wiehe
The exposé (Addicted to Fines: Small Towns Are Dangerously Dependent) raises two important issues that policymakers have the power to address. One, lack of revenue at the local level is linked to a broader challenge with state tax systems. Two, fines and fees often entrap lower-income people in a cycle of debt and, in some jurisdictions, ultimately criminalize poverty by casting unpaid fines as misdemeanor crimes.
Kansas City Star: Is There a Property Tax Fix for Next Year?
September 4, 2019
“Circuit breakers help offset the unfairness of a regressive property tax by identifying the individual taxpayers for whom property taxes are most burdensome and reducing their tax to a manageable level,” says the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. No homeowner should lose his or her residence because of an exorbitant property tax bill. Read […]
Press Herald: Think Tank Says Maine Has Reached ‘Tax Fairness’ Milestone
September 4, 2019
The center cited a 2018 report by the Washington, D.C.-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy that said only five states and the District of Columbia had tax codes in which the bottom 20 percent paid a lower average effective tax rate than the top 1 percent. It said legislative changes this year in Maine […]
MECEP: NEW REPORT: Maine reaches new milestone on the road to tax fairness
September 4, 2019
Starting in 2020 and for the first time in decades, the Mainers who earn the least will no longer pay a larger share of their income to state and local taxes than those who earn the most, according to a policy brief published today by the Maine Center for Economic Policy.
Erika Frankel
September 3, 2019 • By ITEP Staff
Erika brings more than 25 years of information management, project management, and development experience in non-profit, government, and commercial environments to the Data and Model Team. She redesigned the platform for ITEP's flagship microsimulation model, allowing ITEP to respond more quickly to a wider range of policy proposals and changes.
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