Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

ITEP's Research Priorities

Capital & Main: Extreme Wealth Is on the Ballot This Year — Will Americans Vote to Tax the Rich?

April 3, 2024

On March 7, President Joe Biden reintroduced proposals to increase taxes on the wealthiest Americans and the nation’s most profitable corporations. The move virtually ensures that the nation’s extreme wealth inequality — more than one in four dollars in the country is held by a tiny sliver of households with a net worth over $30 million — will be part of the national election debate. But excessive wealth may take center stage in at least 10 states, ranging from Democratic bastions such as California, Hawaii and New York to swing states such as Nevada and Pennsylvania.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: States Can Fight Corporate Tax Avoidance by Requiring Worldwide Combined Reporting

April 1, 2024

To reduce their federal corporate income taxes, every year large multinational corporations shift hundreds of billions of dollars in profits earned in the United States onto the books of subsidiaries formed in foreign tax havens like Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and Ireland. Because nearly all state corporate taxes are based on the taxable profits a corporation reports on its federal return, each year states lose at least $10 billion — and perhaps as much as $15 billion — of revenue due to this profit-shifting, estimates suggest. This is substantial revenue states could be using to provide K-12 teachers with better…

Open Sky Policy Institute: Why Proposed Tax Shift is Wrong for Nebraska

April 1, 2024

The tax package designed to lower property taxes paid to local political subdivisions would increase the tax burden on low- and middle-income working families and make it increasingly difficult for cities, counties and schools to provide the services that Nebraskans expect.

Open Sky Policy Institute: How the Tax Package Impacts Nebraskans

April 1, 2024

The proposal to lower property taxes paid to fund local government services will reduce property taxes paid by property owners, but it’s important to understand how the package that raises the state sales tax rate impacts all consumers and the effect of plans to “front load” the existing tax credit for taxes paid to public schools.

Montana Budget & Policy Center: The Great Tax Shift

March 20, 2024

The taxes paid by Montana residents and businesses have created and continue to fund an equitable educational system, roads and bridges, and services that keep our communities safe. Unfortunately, over time, responsibility for our tax system has shifted to everyday Montanans, like our teachers, plumbers, and construction workers, and away from the wealthy. Over the […]

The Volcker Alliance: State Tax Cuts After the Pandemic

March 18, 2024

The Issue Paper by Can Chen and Alex Hathaway, State Tax Cuts After the Pandemic: Strategies to Sustain Fiscal Health, is the latest in a series of Alliance issue papers on state and local budgeting in the COVID Era. Following the unprecedented federal aid issued to offset the impact of COVID-19, state revenues and cash reserves reached […]

Video: Sen. Warren Slams Republicans Pushing Corporate Handouts While Fighting Child Tax Credit Expansion

March 13, 2024

Senator Warren’s exchange at a March 12, 2024 Senate Finance Committee hearing entitled: American Made: Growing U.S. Manufacturing Through the Tax Code

The Nation: Biden Should Channel His Inner FDR and Soak the Rich

March 13, 2024

There’s no risk and everything to gain politically. According to a Navigator Research poll from last month, 79 percent of registered voters favor higher taxes on billionaires and corporations. Only 16 percent are opposed. Democrats favor wealth taxes on billionaires by a 94-2 margin, independents by a 78-15 margin, Republicans by a 63-30 margin.

Institute for Policy Studies: More for Them, Less for Us

March 13, 2024

Corporate tax dodging and executive pay packages have both gotten so far out of control that a significant number of major U.S. corporations are paying their top executives more than they’re paying Uncle Sam in federal income taxes.

Maine Center for Economic Policy: The Case for Corporate Transparency

March 13, 2024

Mainers work hard to support themselves and their communities. They pay taxes to fund the services communities need to thrive, like education, health care, and infrastructure. But it is increasingly clear that big corporations aren’t holding up their end of the bargain by contributing their fair share. They deploy complicated tax loopholes and accounting schemes to avoid paying what they owe, using their money and power to ensure laws in place don’t expose the tricks they’re playing.

Sacramento Bee: California Families Could Save Thousands of Dollars From Proposed Child Tax Break. Here’s Why

March 12, 2024

President Joe Biden’s child tax credit plan would benefit millions of California parents, saving eligible families an average of $2,980, according to data from Washington’s Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

Newsweek: What a Second Trump Term Means for Taxes

March 12, 2024

A second Donald Trump presidency would likely see another round of tax cuts targeted at the wealthy, similar to his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, according to a prominent taxation expert and lawyer.

USA Today: What President Joe Biden Got Wrong (and Right)

March 11, 2024

Though President Joe Biden largely stuck to the facts during his third State of the Union address Thursday, on several occasions he overstated the truth, left out key context or was simply wrong.

ITEP’s Marco Guzman Testifies in Favor of Tax Fairness Bills in Connecticut

March 11, 2024

Good afternoon, Senator Fonfara, Representative Horn, and members of the Committee, and thank you for this opportunity to testify. My name is Marco Guzman and I'm a senior policy analyst with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, or ITEP, and we’re a nonprofit research organization that focuses on state, local, and federal tax policy issues. 

Yahoo Finance: Trump-Era Corporate Tax Cuts Boosted Investment, but Did Not Pay for Themselves

March 6, 2024

The corporate tax cuts included in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act helped boost business investment while delivering a small increase in worker pay, according to a new analysis published by the Bureau of Economic Research. The tax cuts did not, however, come anywhere close to paying for themselves, as their Republican proponents in Congress and the Trump administration insisted they would, and instead are costing the federal government more than $100 billion per year in lost revenues.

Common Good Iowa: Killing Democracy by Superminority

March 6, 2024

Iowa’s tax structure has long favored the wealthiest Iowans and corporations, and tax cuts passed in 2022 are making inequities worse. The average millionaire will see a cut of $62,000 a year. In the middle, Iowans earning $40,000 to $60,000 will see an average cut of $300, or about $6 a week. Most with incomes under $40,000 will see no cut at all. 

Colorado Department of Revenue: Property Tax Circuit Breaker Programs

March 4, 2024

Because property taxes are based upon property values, they are not as strongly connected to an ability to pay as the income tax. This can be particularly burdensome when income changes as a result of job loss, divorce, illness, or retirement. As a result, property taxes tend to be regressive. 

Route Fifty: States Move to Cut Grocery Taxes

March 4, 2024

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on Tuesday signed a bill to eliminate the state’s sales tax on groceries. With the 4.5% tax gone, that leaves 11 states that impose a grocery tax—a number that is swiftly shrinking. Stitt called it the largest single-year tax cut in state history. Oklahoma will see more than $415 million less in revenue a year.

Deseret News: The Utah Legislature Approved Another Tax Cut. Here’s What Taxpayers Need to Know

March 4, 2024

Utah lawmakers dropped the state’s income tax rate again this year. The reduction in the individual and corporate state income tax rate from 4.65% to 4.55% adds up to nearly $170 million, slightly more than the amount set aside in December for an unspecified tax cut by the powerful Executive Appropriations Committee made up of legislative leadership. The higher price tag is due to updated revenue forecasts showing an anticipated increase in income tax collections and the Legislature’s longtime Republican supermajority left little doubt they intended to continue to lower the state income tax rate. A tax cut was announced as a top…

The Guardian: Private Equity Prepares for a Boon From Congress

March 4, 2024

Some of largest and most profitable companies in the US are primed to save billions of dollars from a congressional tax deal that critics say gives “billions in tax credits to the biggest corporations while giving pennies to middle-class children and families”. And private equity funds could be among the deal’s biggest beneficiaries, a Guardian analysis suggests. The tax cuts passed the House of Representatives at the end of January as part of an agreement that pairs handouts for businesses with a moderate expansion of the child tax credit. The Senate could vote on the bill over the coming weeks, and the White House has indicated that Joe…

Massachusetts Budget & Policy Center: Ending the Tax Penalty Against Working Immigrants

March 4, 2024

In recent years, lawmakers have enacted some important legislation helping Massachusetts residents, regardless of their immigration status, to take full part in commerce and civic life. Laws providing access to drivers’ licenses and in-state tuition, for instance, have opened opportunities that support employment and advance economic growth. Yet tens of thousands of workers, and their families, who pay taxes in Massachusetts are prevented from receiving the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) because they are ineligible for a Social Security Number. Extending eligibility to all workers filing taxes, regardless of their immigration status, would increase the impact of Massachusetts’ EITC, help…

Newsweek: Income Tax Ban Could Be Reality for Millions

March 4, 2024

Supporters of a Washington resident-backed initiative trying to officially eliminate personal income taxes in the state got their first hearing before the legislature on Tuesday. Washington residents haven't paid personal income taxes in almost a century thanks to a 1933 decision by the state Supreme Court, but those backing Initiative 2111 want to make sure that things stay that way, cementing the existing practice into law. I-2111 would prohibit state, counties, cities, and other local jurisdictions from imposing or collecting income taxes.

HuffPost: America’s Largest Companies Dodged Nearly $300 Billion In Taxes, Report Finds

March 4, 2024

The country’s largest companies dodged more than $275 billion in federal corporate income taxes from 2018 to 2022, a new report from the nonprofit Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy finds. The report examined corporate income taxes paid by 342 of the country’s largest companies from 2018 to 2022, the latest year for which companies have reported their earnings. All of them were profitable in all five years covered by the report.

The Guardian: Trump Gave Top US Firms Staggering Tax Cuts, With Some Paying $0 or less – Report

March 4, 2024

Some of the US’s most profitable corporations, including General Motors, Citigroup and Netflix, have slashed their tax bills in the years since the passage of the Trump tax cuts, with nearly a quarter paying rates in the single digits and 23 paying nothing, a report has found. The 2017 law cut the top corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21%. But the new assessment of corporate tax avoidance, published on Thursday by the non-profit Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (Itep), found that during the first five years the law was in effect, many profitable public companies in the US paid a…

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: PNC Bank, PPG Industries Among Companies Paying Less Than the Federal Tax Rate

March 4, 2024

WASHINGTON — More than a dozen Pennsylvania companies — including a handful in the Pittsburgh area — paid less than the 21% federal corporate income tax rate from 2018 to 2022, according to a study released Thursday by a progressive research group.