Why Local Governments Need an Anti-Racist Approach to Property Assessments

August 5, 2021 • By Ambika Sinha

Property taxes are among the oldest and most relied upon form of local taxes. Revenue raised from these taxes funds education, firefighting, law enforcement, street and infrastructure maintenance, and other essential services. Though all members of the community enjoy these public goods, homeowners of color, especially Black families, pay more as a share of home value in property taxes than their white counterparts. 

July 30, 2021 • By Aidan Davis

Child Tax Credit Expansion Acknowledges There Is More We Can Do for Children “Decades of public policies have built inequities into our economic system, yet some political leaders and public figures continue to perpetuate the myth of a level playing field in which anyone who works hard enough can have it all.”

Corporate Tax Avoidance Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

July 29, 2021 • By ITEP Staff, Matthew Gardner, Steve Wamhoff

Thirty-nine profitable corporations in the S&P 500 or Fortune 500 paid no federal income tax from 2018 through 2020, the first three years that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was in effect. Besides the 39 companies that paid nothing over three years, an additional 73 profitable corporations paid less than half the statutory corporate income tax rate of 21 percent established under TCJA. As a group, these 73 corporations paid an effective federal income tax rate of just 5.3 percent during these three years.

The Case for Biden’s Tax Agenda

July 23, 2021 • By ITEP Staff

President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan is the most ambitious economic and social agenda since Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society. It would redirect policy priorities to create educational and economic opportunities for low- and middle-income people and require corporations and wealthy people to pay a fairer share of taxes.

Child Tax Credit Expansion Acknowledges There Is More We Can Do for Children

July 20, 2021 • By Aidan Davis

For the next six months, low-, middle- and upper-middle-income families with children are eligible to receive part of their 2021 Child Tax Credit (CTC) in advanced monthly payments. More than putting money in people’s pockets, this policy recognizes “the dignity of working-class families and middle-class families,” as President Biden said last week.

Opposition to Biden’s Tax Plan Has Nothing to Do with Small Businesses or Family Farms

July 16, 2021 • By Steve Wamhoff

Special interests lobbying against President Joe Biden’s tax agenda claim that his proposed corporate income tax rate hike will harm small businesses and that his proposed capital gains tax reforms will hurt family farms. Both claims are absurd attempts by powerful interests to pretend they are defending the little guy.

Washington Post Confirms that Corporations Are Bolder than Ever in Claiming Dubious Tax Breaks

July 16, 2021 • By Steve Wamhoff

IRS budget cuts starting in 2010 have forced the agency to reduce its audit rate for corporations with $20 billion or more in assets from 98 percent to 50 percent. The Washington Post found that during the decade, the amount of “uncertain tax benefits” claimed by corporations increased 43 percent, from $164 billion in 2010 to $235 billion in 2020.

The Last Dance for Billionaire Sports Owners?

July 16, 2021 • By Reggie Rucker

Comparing athletes to inanimate objects, of course, is incredibly degrading. It’s also standard fare in the sports talk world to compare athletes to stocks in which you want to buy low and trade high to maximize your returns—the greatest return usually being championship trophies. It wasn’t until ProPublica released its latest report, The Billionaire Playbook: How Sports Owners Use Their Teams to Avoid Millions in Taxes, that we were able to see so clearly how the athlete as a stock is not just a dehumanizing concept in team sports at the individual level, but also how owners of sports teams…

Experts Weigh in on the Payoffs of Advanced Child Tax Credit Payments

July 15, 2021 • By Jenice Robinson

During a Tuesday webinar (The Child Tax Credit in Practice: What We Know about the Payoffs of Payments) hosted by ITEP and the Economic Security Project, panelists explained why the expanded Child Tax Credit is a transformative policy that should be extended beyond 2021. They highlighted tax policy and anti-poverty research and discussed lessons learned from demonstration projects that have provided a guaranteed income to low-income families.

A Divided and Insufficiently Taxed House Cannot Stand

July 14, 2021 • By Guest Blogger

“It’s not just condominium buildings that are showing their age,” Peter Coy writes in a piece critiquing the condominium form of ownership for underinvesting in maintenance. Coy just as easily could have been describing American democracy that is showing its age in similar ways.

In Drive to Cut Taxes, States Blow an Opportunity to Invest in Underfunded Services

July 7, 2021 • By Marco Guzman

Many states find themselves in a peculiar fiscal situation right now: federal pandemic relief money has been dispersed to states and revenue projections have exceeded expectations set during the pandemic. Meanwhile, more and more workers are returning to jobs as vaccines roll out and typical economic activity resumes. Some states, however, have decided to squander their unexpected fiscal strength on tax cuts.

The Child Tax Credit in Practice: What We Know About the Payoffs of Payments (Webinar)

July 7, 2021 • By ITEP Staff

Join us for a discussion on why tax credits like the Child Tax Credit (CTC) expansion are good economic policy. You’ll hear from anti-poverty experts on why Congress should extend the policy beyond 2021 and what we can learn from an initiative providing low-income mothers in Jackson, Miss., $1,000 cash on a monthly basis, no strings attached. From theory to practice and what it means for American families, this CTC webinar will provide a unique angle through which to view this transformative policy.

Congress Should Follow States’ Lead on Inclusive Economic Recovery

July 7, 2021 • By Meg Wiehe

President Joe Biden's American Families and Jobs plans intend to “build back better” and create a more inclusive economy. To fully live up to this ideal, the final plan must include undocumented people and their families.

State-Level EITC Victories in 2021

June 28, 2021 • By Aidan Davis

A growing group of state lawmakers are recognizing the extent to which low- and middle-income Americans are struggling and the ways in which their state and local tax systems can do more to ensure the economic security of their residents over the long run. To that end, lawmakers across the country have made strides in enacting, increasing, or expanding tax credits that benefit low- and middle-income families. Here is a summary of those changes and a celebration of those successes.

When Tax Breaks for Retirement Savings Enrich the Already Rich

June 25, 2021 • By Steve Wamhoff

Members of Congress frequently claim they want to make it easier for working people to scrape together enough savings to have some financial security in retirement. But lawmakers’ preferred method to (ostensibly) achieve this goal is through tax breaks that have allowed the tech mogul Peter Thiel to avoid taxes on $5 billion. This is just one of the eye-popping revelations in the latest expose from ProPublica.