• blog   June 23, 2017

    Inverter Mylan Finds Yet Another Way to Avoid Taxes

    Rather than being known for its pioneering pharmaceuticals, Mylan is increasingly becoming infamous for its pioneering tax avoidance strategies. In 2015, Mylan used an inversion to claim that it is now based in the Netherlands for tax purposes. It is a Dutch company only on paper because ownership of the company was mostly unchanged and it continues to operate largely out of the United States. This maneuver has allowed the company to avoid millions in taxes on its earnings in the U.S. and abroad.

    But that’s not the end of Mylan’s innovation when it comes to tax planning. A new report by Reuters found that Mylan is using a surprising new technique for dodging taxes: investing in coal refineries.

  • blog   June 16, 2017

    The GOP Health Plan Cuts Medicaid to Lower Taxes for the Richest 3 Percent

    The bill passed by the House of Representatives last month to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the most unpopular legislation in decades.

    Lawmakers should reverse course and take the necessary time to put together legislation that would preserve or, better yet, improve access to health care. But this isn’t likely to happen because at its core, the American Health Care Act isn’t truly health care reform. It is tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the rich shrouded in legislative provisions that would weaken the existing health care law.

  • blog   June 15, 2017

    Which States Benefit from the Tax Cuts in the GOP Health Plan?

    Congressional Republicans’ plans to repeal the two largest tax increases on individuals that were enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would disproportionately benefit residents of Connecticut, New York, the District of Columbia and 10 other states. The remaining states would receive a share of the tax cuts that is less than their share of the total U.S. population.

  • blog   June 12, 2017

    The Best Way to Radically Simplify Tax Filing

    One of the supposed selling points of the House GOP’s “Better Way” tax plan is that it will make the tax system so simple that you could do your taxes on a postcard. The reality, however, is that their promised postcard is a deception that would require numerous additional pages of worksheets to fill out. A better solution to making tax preparation simpler is called “return-free filing.” It does not just reduce your work to filling out a postcard, it could eliminate it altogether.

  • blog   June 8, 2017

    Kansas May Have Saved Us All

    Sitting in the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC, hidden in the jumble of Americana like Thomas Jefferson’s desk, Michelle Obama’s inaugural gown and the ruby slippers worn in the Wizard of Oz, is a napkin with a drawing on it. Probably one of the least known exhibits in the museum, this napkin, quietly hiding behind glass lest some child wandering from a school group wipe his nose on it, has on several occasions destroyed the finances of the federal government and several state governments, most recently in Kansas.

  •   June 8, 2017

    Steve Wamhoff

    Steve is ITEP’s director of federal tax policy. In this role, he is responsible for setting the organization’s federal research and policy agenda. He is the author of numerous reports and analyses of federal tax policies as well as in-depth policy briefs that outline how the federal income tax and corporate tax code can be overhauled to improve tax fairness.

  • media mention   June 8, 2017

    PBS News Hour: How Much Do the Poor Actually Pay in Taxes? Probably More Than You Think.

    “All told, those in the bottom fifth of earners pay almost a fifth of their income in taxes. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the lowest-income quintile…
  • media mention   June 7, 2017

    Kansas City Star: Kansas Tax ‘Experiment’ Offers Lessons to the Nation, Analysts Say

    “An analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found in 2015 that taxpayers in the bottom 40 percent saw an overall increase in their taxes under Brownback when…
  • media mention   June 6, 2017

    The Atlantic: Can America’s Farms Survive the Threat of Deportations?

    “Pete points out that the undocumented community is a net contributor to taxes. It’s true: A recent report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that undocumented immigrants…
  • media mention   June 3, 2017

    Charleston Gazette-Mail: Senate Tax Plan is Upward Redistribution

    “Some West Virginia Senators are singing a similar tune as Reagan with their tax plan. While they say their plan is a tax cut for everyone, the facts say otherwise.…
  • media mention   June 2, 2017

    Politifact: Richest 1 Percent Pay Lowest Rate of State and Local Taxes in Wisconsin?

    McCabe, who says he is not a member of any political party, cited a 50-state analysis of state and local taxes published in January 2015 by the Institute on Taxation…
  • blog   June 2, 2017

    What a Populist Budget Proposal Really Looks Like

    A truly populist budget would seek to ensure that middle- and low-income families have the resources that they need to get ahead, that the wealthy and corporations are paying their fair share in taxes, and that our country is making the public investments we need to ensure full employment and improve productivity over the long term. The Congressional Progressive Caucus’s (CPC) 2018 budget proposal would make real progress on all of these fronts.

  •   May 31, 2017

    Los Angeles Times: School vouchers don’t just undermine public schools, they undermine our democracy

    Administration officials have suggested what amounts to a “back door” way to increase the reach of vouchers: tax credits for corporations and the rich who contribute to third-party voucher funds.…
  • blog   May 25, 2017

    Congressional Hearing Highlights Problems with the Border Adjustment Tax

    The debate over the so-called border adjustment tax (or BAT) took center stage this week when the House Ways and Means Committee held its first hearing on the topic. Despite strong support by the House Republican leadership and the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Kevin Brady, the proposal faced an onslaught of criticism during the hearing from invited witnesses and members of both parties.

  • blog   May 24, 2017

    23 Million Uninsured Americans Is Too Great a Cost to Finance Tax Cuts for the Rich

    The cost to give $1 trillion in tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations is 23 million uninsured Americans by 2026. This is the bottom-line take away from the much-awaited Congressional Budget Office (CBO) score of the American Health Care Act, which House Republicans rushed through the chamber and narrowly passed (217-213) in early May.

  • blog   May 18, 2017

    Tax Avoiding Companies Well Represented at Tax Reform Hearing

    Today the House Ways and Means Committee will hold its first tax reform hearing of 2017, which marks the official opening of the tax reform debate in Congress. True tax reform, if the committee sought to achieve it, could create more jobs and ensure companies are paying their fair share by cracking down on the massive offshore tax avoidance that companies engage in. Unfortunately, the panel of witnesses for today’s hearing is largely made up of representatives of various major corporations that are beneficiaries of the loopholes in our current corporate tax laws. Given this, it seems likely that these panelists will not push for a fairer corporate tax code, but rather a code that allows them to avoid even more taxes and incentivizes moving more jobs offshore.

  • blog   May 12, 2017

    South Carolina’s Gas Tax Deal: Could Have Been Worse, Could Have Been Better

    South Carolina lawmakers this week raised the state’s gas tax for the first time in 28 years, a time period that tied for the third-longest in the nation. While the…
  • blog   May 10, 2017

    State Rundown 5/10: Spring Tax Debates at Different Stages in Different States

    This week saw a springtime mix of state tax debates in all stages of life. In West Virginia and Louisiana, debates over income tax reductions and comprehensive tax reform are…
  • blog   May 10, 2017

    Gas Taxes Increases Continue to Advance in the States

    This post was updated July 12, 2017 to reflect recent gas tax increases in Oregon and West Virginia.
    As expected, 2017 has brought a flurry of action relating to state gasoline taxes. As of this writing, eight states (California, Indiana, Montana, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia) have enacted gas tax increases this year, bringing the total number of states that have raised or reformed their gas taxes to 26 since 2013.

  • blog   May 9, 2017

    Representative John Delaney’s Bills Take the Wrong Approach on Funding Infrastructure

    Lawmakers across the political spectrum recognize the need for additional spending to maintain and upgrade our nation’s transportation infrastructure. According to the Federal Highway Administration, there is a backlog of…
  • blog   May 5, 2017

    Key Resources for Digging into the Trump and GOP Tax Reform Agenda

    President Donald Trump’s tax sketch released in late April is the starting point for federal tax reform discussions. For now, the sketch includes too few details to properly analyze its…
  • blog   May 4, 2017

    EITC Victories Await in Both Hawaii and Montana

    Two states are on the verge of embracing a tried and tested anti-poverty policy, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). In the past two weeks, lawmakers in both Hawaii and…
  • blog   May 4, 2017

    Nebraska Vote Is Latest Defeat for Tax-Cut “Trigger” Gimmick

    Nebraska lawmakers had a long and contentious tax-cut debate this session but ultimately chose the wise path and rejected attempts to give a massive tax cut to the wealthy at…
  • blog   May 2, 2017

    Critical Anti-Tax Evasion Legislation Under Attack

    The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act – or FATCA – is a financial disclosure and transparency law designed to crack down on international tax evasion by U.S. taxpayers who hold…
  • report   May 2, 2017

    Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA): A Critical Anti-Tax Evasion Tool

    For years, a subset of the well-to-do and well-connected have been able to exploit the intricacies of our global financial system to shelter their income and investments from taxation. The U.S. government took a stand against this type of willful tax evasion with the passage of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act – or FATCA – enacted as part of the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act of 2010.