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blog May 5, 2020 Trump’s Payroll Tax Cut Makes Even Less Sense as Job Losses Mount
Last August, long before COVID-19 ravaged the U.S. economy, the Trump Administration began touting a payroll tax cut as a stimulus. Now, with more than 30 million official unemployment claims… -
blog May 5, 2020 The Price We Pay for Amazon in Its Prime
There is every reason to believe that Amazon will continue its tax-avoidance ways in 2020. The entirely-legal tax avoidance tools the company used to zero out its federal income tax bills over the last three years remain entirely legal today. From accelerated depreciation to the research and development tax credit to the deduction for executive stock options, Amazon’s tax avoidance tools have been blessed by lawmakers, and presidents, of all stripes.
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blog May 4, 2020 Intended Consequences: Deliberate Disinvestment Caused Florida’s Unemployment Disaster
Florida politicians deliberately rigged the unemployment system after the Great Recession to avoid raising taxes on businesses. Now, in a pandemic, some out-of-work residents are left waiting more than six weeks for unemployment benefits while more than 280,000 others have been inexplicably denied. What’s happening in Florida underscores deeper challenges with systems that should help those in need, but instead are designed to fail them.
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blog May 1, 2020 Two Pandemics, Separate and Unequal
COVID-19 has revealed a policy apparatus that reflexively prioritizes those who need it least, a wholly inadequate safety net, an underfunded public health infrastructure, and an inefficient national health stockpile. If the nation stays this course, it will make only cosmetic restorations to a shoddily built house.
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ITEP Work in Action April 30, 2020 New Mexico Voices for Children: Essential But Excluded
Immigrants pay taxes and are important contributors to New Mexico’s economy. Nationwide, immigrants pay hundreds of billions of dollars in federal, state, and local income and other taxes. New Mexico… -
ITEP Work in Action April 30, 2020 Community Change: End the Tax Penalty Against Immigrant Workers
The Earned Income Tax Credit is a powerful path out of poverty in America, but millions of immigrant households are barred from receiving it, even though they would otherwise qualify… -
blog April 29, 2020 Economic Catastrophe in States Looms as Federal Relief Lags
A bipartisan group of governors and senators from Louisiana to Maryland to Ohio have called for at least $500 billion in state and local fiscal relief. They also need specific help with testing, protective equipment, unemployment costs, Medicaid costs, social services, education and infrastructure. States can’t be on their own as they address the double whammy of plunging revenue and skyrocketing needs.
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blog April 29, 2020 Pandemic Profits: Netflix’s Record Profit Haul, Past Tax Avoidance Raise Questions about Tax Law’s Weaknesses
At a time when many companies are facing existential threats due to the COVID-19 pandemic and associated economic shutdown, it is vital to ensure that our corporate tax laws apply fairly to companies that are still turning a profit in these turbulent times.
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blog April 29, 2020 Sales Tax Policy in a Pandemic: Exemptions for Digital Goods and Services Are More Outdated Than Ever
Many states are making the decline in sales tax collection worse by failing to apply their sales taxes to digital goods (such as downloads of music, movies, or software) and services (such as digital streaming). A state that taxes movie theater tickets but not digital streaming, for instance, is needlessly hastening the decline of its own sales tax.
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blog April 24, 2020 The CARES Act Provision for High-Income Business Owners Looks Worse and Worse
A select group of millionaires will receive an average tax break of $1.6 million thanks to a CARES Act provision that is receiving delayed but well-deserved scrutiny. Wealthy business owners are receiving this windfall because the CARES Act provides tax breaks to people with losses from a business they own. This approach may seem sensible because businesses small and large are taking a hit from the economic recession, but on close inspection, these provisions benefit those least in need and can be easily abused.
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blog April 24, 2020 Partying Like It’s 2017: How Congress Went Overboard on Helping Businesses with Losses
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act provides some needed relief for individuals and families, but two arcane tax provisions related to business losses will further enrich the wealthy and fail to boost our economy more broadly.
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news release April 24, 2020 ITEP: Making Decisions on Federal Relief Based on Blue v. Red States is Morally Bankrupt
Following is a statement by Meg Wiehe, deputy executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, regarding Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s press release on “blue state bailouts” and suggestion that states facing budgetary shortfalls should seek bankruptcy protection.
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blog April 23, 2020 To Avoid the CARES Act’s Flaws, Invest in Automatic Relief
With adequate automatic stabilizers, the United States might not end up with economic relief bills that have provisions tucked in them mostly helping millionaires, as we learned was the case with a CARES Act provision suspending limits on business losses. And regular people could get help more quickly, blunting the economic downturn.
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news release April 21, 2020 ITEP: Congress Must Provide More Relief to States
Media contact Following is a statement by Amy Hanauer, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, regarding the Senate bill on small business relief. “State budgets have… -
blog April 20, 2020 It’s Time to Rethink Those Tax Cuts
The full effect of the coronavirus pandemic on state revenue streams remains largely unknown. One key policy option is to reevaluate recent misguided tax cuts—particularly those that have not yet taken full effect and will add to growing revenue shortfalls in the coming years.
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blog April 17, 2020 Morally and Economically, Including Undocumented Immigrants Is the Right Thing to Do
Undocumented immigrants pay taxes and play an integral part in the social and economic welfare of our country, yet Congress left them almost entirely out of the CARES Act package. Fortunately, immigrants, workers and their allies are helping policymakers advance better policy approaches.
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report April 15, 2020 State Options to Shore up Revenues and Improve Tax Codes amid Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic is an extraordinarily challenging time, as we see harm and struggle affecting the vast majority of our families, businesses, public services, and economic sectors. No one will be unaffected by the crisis, and everyone has a stake in the recovery and faces tough decisions. In the world of state fiscal policy, where revenue shortfalls are likely to be far bigger than can be filled by the initial $150 billion in federal aid or absorbed through funding cuts without causing major harm, tax increases must be among those decisions. Even with more federal support, states will need home-grown revenue solutions in the short, medium, and long terms as the crisis and its fiscal fallout intensify, subside, and eventually give way to a new normal. States must balance their budgets, and research shows that they harm their economies when they choose deep funding cuts to vital public investments over increasing tax contributions from those who can afford them.
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ITEP Work in Action April 15, 2020 GBPI: Implement Immigrant-Inclusive Policies During the COVID-19 Crisis
Immigrants represent one in 10 Georgians and are critical to Georgia’s economy, with 31 percent of main street businesses owned by foreign-born Georgians and undocumented Georgians contributing $352 million in… -
news release April 14, 2020 ITEP: Tax Cuts for Millionaires in the CARES Act Violate Public Trust
“Public trust and the broad agreement that families and communities needed immediate relief from the economic crisis allowed the $2.2 trillion economic relief package to move quickly through Congress. Yet during a crisis in which thousands have lost their lives and millions are losing their jobs, their health care and their retirement security, some of our lawmakers snuck in tax benefits for the nation’s richest families.”
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blog April 7, 2020 Addressing the COVID-19 Economic Crisis: Advice for the Next Round
Americans need many things right now beyond tax cuts or cash payments. But for people whose incomes have declined or evaporated, money is the obvious, immediate need to prevent missed rent or mortgage payments, skipped hospital visits and other cascading catastrophes. So, what should Congress do next to get money to those who need it?
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blog April 6, 2020 Trump to Restaurant Owners: “Let Them Eat Skyboxes”
Last week, President Trump destroyed everyone’s coronavirus press conference bingo card by announcing that a conversation he had with celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck inspired him to propose restoring a corporate tax deduction for business entertainment expenses. Trump’s own signature tax plan repealed this break two years ago.
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blog April 2, 2020 Federal Relief Bill Doesn’t Go Far Enough: Q&A with Meg Wiehe
The final version of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act enacted last week included rebate provisions that will reach most low-, moderate- and middle-income adults and children, but not everyone. Meg Wiehe sits down for a Q&A to discuss who benefits from the rebate provision, who is excluded and how states can respond to support communities.
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ITEP Work in Action April 2, 2020 NC Policy Watch: Those Federal COVID-19 Checks: What They Mean and Who Might Get Left Out
In a replay of how aid checks were dispensed during the Great Recession, the CARES Act reveals giant holes in how we get cash to people in desperate need. Without… -
ITEP Work in Action April 2, 2020 Colorado Fiscal Institute: Protection From a Pandemic: The Federal Response to COVID-19 in Colorado
The federal response contains important provisions designed to help individuals and families, businesses, and state and local governments respond to this unprecedented event. This report aims to provide a summary… -
blog April 2, 2020 Sales Taxes and Social Distancing: State and Local Governments May Face Their Steepest Sales Tax Decline Ever
One pressing question is what will an economic downturn in which consumers are anxious, facing job loss, or simply spending their time sheltering in place and not spending money in typical ways, mean for states’ ability to raise revenue?