Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP)

ITEP's Research Priorities

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.

NPR: A Tech Billionaire Is Quietly Buying Up Land in Hawaii. No One Knows Why

February 28, 2024

Over the last couple of years, a mystery has been brewing in this small mountain town. Someone has been quietly buying hundreds of acres of land — stirring worries about rising housing prices and speculation among locals about what exactly is going on.

Movement for Black Lives (M4BL): Economic Justice

February 27, 2024

We demand economic justice for all and a reconstruction of the economy to ensure Black communities have collective ownership, not merely access.

Mother Jones: It’s No Secret Our Tax System Punishes Low-Income People. It Doesn’t Have To

February 26, 2024

Oregon taxpayers will become some of the first in the nation to have the option to self-identify their race and ethnicity when they file their tax returns this year. The reason is both simple and complex: Especially at the state level, taxes worsen America’s yawning wealth gaps rather than easing them. A growing number of advocates and policymakers are trying to do something about that. 

The Hill: Trump Tax Cuts on the Line in 2024 Election

February 21, 2024

The 2017 Trump tax cuts are on the line in the election this year, with Republicans hoping a sweep of Congress and the White House will allow them to extend the former president’s signature law. Democrats opposed the law when Trump was in power but have supported extending certain cuts, such as the decreased tax rates for people making less than $400,000 a year. Democrats do not want a blanket extension, which would cost nearly $4 trillion over the next decade.

Audio: ITEP’s Carl Davis Talks to Ohio Newsroom About That State’s Upside-Down Tax Code

February 20, 2024

Ohio’s poorest residents pay a greater percentage of their income to state and local taxes than the richest Ohioans, according to a recent report from the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. It found that Ohio has the 15th most unequal tax system in the country.

Roll Call: Rule for ‘SALT’ Bill Goes Down, Likely Sealing Its Fate

February 20, 2024

The House rejected a rule that would provide for floor consideration of a bill to double the cap on state and local tax deductions for married couples earning up to $500,000, striking a blow to legislation championed by blue-state Republicans. The House voted 195-225 Wednesday on the rule, falling well short of the majority needed to proceed to a floor vote on the bill and an unrelated resolution criticizing President Joe Biden’s energy policies.

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The ‘Low-Tax’ Lie: States Hyped for Low Taxes Usually Only Low-Tax for the Rich

February 20, 2024 • By Jon Whiten

The ‘Low-Tax’ Lie: States Hyped for Low Taxes Usually Only Low-Tax for the Rich

It’s hard to go a week without seeing a politician or a news article hype up a state as the place that everyone is moving to – or should move to – because of low taxes. However, there’s a big problem with these proclamations: they aren’t true.  

Better Wyoming: Somehow, Some Way, Wyoming Property Tax Relief is Coming

February 14, 2024

Buying a home is a goal for most hard-working Wyoming families, and achieving it is a cause to celebrate. But many homeowners in recent years have opened their annual property tax bills and been jolted by huge increases. In fact, residential property tax bills in Wyoming have gone up by an average of more than 80 percent over the past six years.

LA Times: Taxpayer ‘Protection’ or Taxpayer ‘Deception’? A New Ballot Measure Aims to Destroy State and Local Budgets

February 14, 2024

It’s indisputable that the decline of state fiscal management in California began with the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978. The tax-cutting initiative upended the tax structure that provided most of the revenues needed by localities and school districts, undermining the locals’ control of their own spending.

Common Good Iowa: Both Governor’s, Senate Plans Worsen Tax Inequalities

February 12, 2024

Iowans have traditionally valued expanding opportunity, caring for neighbors and a strong sense of fair play. Tax-cut proposals at the Iowa Statehouse from Governor Kim Reynolds and legislative leaders turn these Iowa values upside down. They would drastically restrict revenue needed to fund critical services such as education, health care, public safety and environmental quality. The Senate bill, SSB 3141, would set out to fully eliminate the income tax, which until recently has funded roughly half of the state budget. By targeting benefits to the wealthiest Iowans, the plans would throw an already inequitable tax system further out of balance.

Oklahoma Policy Institute: Economic Projections for Asylum Seekers and New Immigrants in Oklahoma

February 12, 2024

Immigration is hardly a new social trend in the state of Oklahoma. Of the four million people living in the state, 243,000 are immigrants, or six percent of the total population, according to the 2022 American Community Survey.

Stateline: If You Can Buy a ‘Mansion,’ You Can Pay a Tax for Affordable Housing, These States Say

February 12, 2024

To create a long-term revenue stream, Berg has proposed raising taxes on the most expensive real estate transactions, an increasing nationwide trend sometimes dubbed a “mansion tax.” Her legislation would increase the state’s tax on property sales above $3 million while decreasing the tax rate for less expensive sales. The change is estimated to create an additional $300 million in revenue each biennium, said Berg, chair of the House Finance Committee.

Center for Public Integrity: More Tax Cuts Put States’ Revenue At Risk

February 12, 2024

At least a dozen proposals for income tax cuts that would primarily benefit wealthy residents and big companies are already on the table for state legislatures to consider in 2024 — and more are likely to come. Read more.