Alex Welch – Page 33

blog July 28, 2020
A Hero vs a Heel: No Contest

Americans are demanding policy that meets the needs of this urgent moment. There are now competing proposals from the U.S. House and Senate: One is a reasonable response to the staggering crisis we’re in. One is not.
blog July 28, 2020
A Tax Loophole You Could Drive a Food Truck Through: Senate GOP Proposes Full Deductibility of Business Meals

After weeks of being in no particular hurry to assemble a new COVID-19 economic relief package, the Senate GOP has released its plan. It includes the “Supporting America’s Restaurant Workers Act,” which would allow business owners to write off 100 percent of the cost of their restaurant meals through the end of 2020. The two most obvious questions to ask about such a plan are “why” and “why now?” Republican lawmakers have not offered sensible responses to either because they have none.
brief July 28, 2020
New Analysis Compares HEROES Act and HEALS Act, Disaggregates Data by Race and Income

The Health, Economic Assistance, Liability Protection and Schools (HEALS) Act released by Senate Republicans Monday includes a tax rebate that is slightly more generous than the one provided under the March CARES Act, but fails to correct most of the earlier act’s problems. House Democrats addressed these shortcomings in the May HEROES Act, a better starting place for negotiations over the next round of COVID-19 relief. ITEP has analyzed both acts to provide a detailed comparison of how the tax rebate provisions would affect families across the income spectrum and by race. Both measures would provide cash payments to a majority of individuals and families, but the HEROES Act goes farther and is more inclusive.
blog July 24, 2020
Treasury Secretary Mnuchin to Unemployed Workers: Don’t Worry, Get a Bank Loan

In an explanation that can only be called richsplaining, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Thursday suggested that Congress’s delay in approving expanded unemployment benefits was no problem because banks would extend loans to people in the meantime.
news release July 23, 2020
Republican COVID Relief Plan Doesn’t Rise to the Moment

Media contact Following is a statement by Amy Hanauer, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), regarding the pending Republican plan for phase IV COVID-19 relief.…
blog July 21, 2020
Biden Proposes to Fund Child Care and Elder Care by Shutting Down Tax Breaks for Real Estate Investors

On Tuesday, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden announced a $775 billion proposal to expand care options for children and elderly people, suggesting that the cost would be at least partly offset by paring back tax breaks for real estate investors.

Bigtime real estate investors are simply unaccustomed to operating without government subsidies provided through the tax code.
blog July 21, 2020
New ITEP Report on Trump’s Payroll Tax Holiday

While the White House hasn’t clarified what it is proposing, we know that a payroll tax cut would not be well-targeted. In a new report, ITEP estimates the effects of suspending Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes for employees and employers from September 1 through the end of the year. We find that 64 percent of the benefits would go to the richest 20 percent of Americans while 24 percent of the benefits would go to the richest 1 percent.
news release July 21, 2020
New Analysis: Payroll Tax Cut Would Cost $336 Billion, Benefit Top 1 Percent Most

Media contact Temporarily eliminating all federal payroll taxes through the end of the year would cost $336 billion, deliver 64 percent of its benefits to the richest 20 percent of…
report July 21, 2020
An Updated Analysis of a Potential Payroll Tax Holiday

ITEP estimates that if Congress and the president eliminated all Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes paid by employers and employees from Sept. 1 through the end of the year, 64 percent of the benefits would go the richest 20 percent of taxpayers and 24 percent of the benefits would go to the richest 1 percent of taxpayers, as illustrated in the table below. The total cost of this hypothetical proposal would be $336 billion.
media mention July 17, 2020
Bloomberg: Virus Surge Hits Budgets of States Most Vulnerable to Shutdowns

As the two states have each surpassed nearly 600,000 confirmed cases combined, with daily new cases in the tens of thousands, governors in Florida and Texas are considering scaling back…
blog July 17, 2020
SALT Cap Repeal Has No Place in COVID-19 Legislation: National and State-by-State Data

The Trump-GOP tax law enacted at the end of 2017 includes a $10,000 cap on the amount of state and local taxes (SALT) that people can deduct on their federal tax returns, and this is one of the few limits the law places on tax breaks for high-income people. Unfortunately, it is also the provision that some Democrats are most determined to remove.
blog July 15, 2020
New Prosperity Now Report Identifies Upside-Down Tax Incentives

Ahead of this year’s delayed Tax Day, our partners at Prosperity Now released a powerful report providing a comprehensive overview of many of the ways our federal tax system privileges…
media mention July 14, 2020
Salon: “Stunningly Tone-Deaf”: Ivanka Trump Criticized for Urging Jobless Americans to “Find Something New”

Roughly two-thirds of the temporary payroll tax cut would flow to the richest 20% of Americans, while the poorest 40% would get only 6% of the benefit, according to the…
media mention July 14, 2020
The Epoch Times: Biden’s Progressive Tax Proposal Raises Rates on Wealthy and Corporations

“It’s probably one of the most progressive tax plans we’ve seen from a presidential nominee from one of the two major parties in many, many years,” Steve Wamhoff, director of federal…
media mention July 14, 2020
Law 360: State And Local Tax Policy To Watch In The 2nd Half Of 2020

As states grapple with refilling their coffers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, tax policy debates in the second half of 2020 could center on revisiting conformity to the federal…
media mention July 14, 2020
Urban Milwaukee: Labor Leaders Slam Trump for Betraying Working People

By Democratic Party of Wisconsin The tax law Trump pushed through was a boon for large corporations, including those in Wisconsin like Kimberly Clark, that used the handout to shutter…
media mention July 14, 2020
The Moneyist: ‘I’m Having a Hard Time Understanding How Earning Over $200K/year Is Too Much to Qualify for a Decent Stimulus Check’

According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the majority of state tax systems are regressive. “Those in the highest-income quintile pay a smaller share of all state and…
report July 14, 2020
Who Pays Taxes in America in 2020?

Having a sound understanding of who pays taxes and how much is a particularly relevant question now as the nation grapples with a health and economic crisis that is devastating lower-income families and requiring all levels of government to invest more in keeping individuals, families and communities afloat. This year, the share of all taxes paid by the richest 1 percent of Americans (24.3 percent) will be just a bit higher than the share of all income going to this group (20.9 percent). The share of all taxes paid by the poorest fifth of Americans (2 percent) will be just a bit lower than the share of all income going to this group (2.8 percent).
news release July 13, 2020
ITEP: Tax Cuts for the Rich Will Exacerbate Inequality, Fail to Address Current Economic Crisis

Following is a statement by Amy Hanauer, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, regarding White House Advisor Larry Kudlow’s statement on priorities for the next economic relief package.
blog July 10, 2020
Adequately Funding the IRS Would Be One Small Step Toward Racial Equity in the Tax Code

IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig vowed to work with Congress to explore how the federal tax system contributes to the racial wealth gap. There are at least two ways this can happen: tax policies enacted by Congress and IRS enforcement of these policies.
media mention July 9, 2020
Wall Street Journal Opinion: Payroll-Tax Cuts Mostly Go to the Well Off

Contrary to the authors’ claim, a payroll tax cut wouldn’t “disproportionately benefit” lower-income workers. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, nearly half of the benefit from a…
media mention July 9, 2020
Jacobin: The 1 Percent Are Cheating Us Out of a Quarter-Trillion Dollars in Taxes Every Year

On the international front, Trump’s 2017 tax cut bill included several provisions that “encourage American-based corporations to shift profits offshore,” according to the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy. The…
media mention July 9, 2020
Yahoo Finance: This GOP Proposal May Slash Taxes for Big Tech: ITEP

Matthew Gardner, Senior Fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, joins Yahoo Finance’s Zack Guzman to discuss how a possible Republican tax credit proposal could provide new breaks…
media mention July 9, 2020
MedPage Today: Tenet Gets Big Federal $$$ but Still Cuts Employees

Many companies, including Tenet, delayed paying their 2017 tax liabilities at the rate then (35%) to follow whatever the rate is when they decide to pay (21% for 2019), said…
media mention July 9, 2020
Gothamist: Undocumented Immigrants In Need Finally Get Promised Pandemic Cash Assistance

Most workers who lost their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic started receiving unemployment and federal stimulus checks in March and April. But undocumented immigrants don’t qualify, even though the Institute…

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