Alex Welch – Page 38

report February 5, 2020
State Itemized Deductions: Surveying the Landscape, Exploring Reforms

State itemized deductions are generally patterned after federal law, though nearly every state makes significant changes to the menu of deductions available or the extent to which those deductions are allowed. This report summarizes the key details of each state’s itemized deduction policies and discusses various options for reforming those deductions with a focus on lessening their regressive impact and reducing their cost to state budgets.
blog February 4, 2020
Trump Already Did Tax Cuts 2.0… For Corporations

If President Trump puts forth another tax proposal this year, as he is hinting, it will be his third. The second round, already costing the U.S. Treasury billions, was implemented largely out of the public’s view.
blog February 4, 2020
Washington Is Finally Having the Right Conversation about Taxes

Presidential candidates and some elected officials are finally talking about bold tax policy ideas that would increase taxes and raise revenue. This is a dramatic shift from when a radical, right-wing narrative dominated the public debate. Republicans redefined “fiscal responsibility” as fewer taxes and less government, peddled supply-side economic theories, and denied the clear evidence that tax cuts were adding to our nation’s deficits.
blog January 31, 2020
From 0% to 1.2%: Amazon Lauds Its Minuscule Effective Federal Income Tax Rate

If we focus on the taxes the company paid in 2019, we see an effective federal income tax rate of just 1.2 percent. And since the company enjoyed federal income tax rebates in 2017 and 2018, this means that over the last three years Amazon has paid zero on $29 billion of U.S. pretax income.
ITEP Work in Action January 31, 2020
Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center: The Gas Tax: What it is and Who Pays

Data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) detail how the current system of state and local taxes in Massachusetts is regressive, largely because the state uses a…
ITEP Work in Action January 31, 2020
Florida Policy Institute: Earned Income Tax Credit Crucial for Working Families

State EITCs are better targeted to people with low income than blanket tax exemptions, so they help to reduce the disproportionate impact of sales and excise taxes. According to new…
ITEP Work in Action January 30, 2020
Alabama Arise: End Alabama’s state grocery tax and protect school funding

How to untax groceries without costing education a dime It’s crucial to replace the grocery tax revenue without hurting the people who would benefit most from the tax’s elimination. Fortunately,…
blog January 29, 2020
ITEP Urges IRS to End SALT Workaround Scheme for Businesses

A new IRS proposal could once again allow wealthy business owners to use state charitable tax credits–including tax credits for donating to support private and religious K-12 schools–to dodge the federal government’s $10,000 cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions.
January 29, 2020
ITEP Comments and Recommendations on REG-107431-19

Comments regarding the possibility that owners of passthrough businesses may be able to circumvent the $10,000 SALT deduction cap of section 164(b)(6) by recharacterizing the nondeductible portion of their state and local income tax payments as deductible expenses associated with carrying on a trade or business.
ITEP Work in Action January 28, 2020
West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy: Who Pays? Rethinking West Virginia’s Tax System

To get a sense of a state’s values, one often need look no further than its tax system. What a state spends its tax dollars on and how it acquires…
ITEP Work in Action January 28, 2020
New Mexico Voices for Children: Expanding New Mexico’s Best Anti-Poverty Program

The Working Families Tax Credit (WFTC) is New Mexico’s equivalent of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The WFTC’s eligibility levels and credit amounts are based directly on the…
ITEP Work in Action January 28, 2020
Arizona Center for Economic Progress: In Search of a State Budget That Creates Opportunity for All

While all families in Arizona help pay for health, education and public safety through state and local taxes, low-income and middle-income families pay a larger portion of their income in…
ITEP Work in Action January 26, 2020
The Arizona Center for Economic Progress: In Search 2020

In Search of State Budget That Creates Opportunity for All When all types of state and local taxes are combined—income, sales, and property—families with income in the lowest 20 percent…
blog January 24, 2020
GOP Legacy on IRS Administration: Auditing Mississippi, not Microsoft

Money doesn’t buy happiness—but it can buy immunity from the reach of Uncle Sam. The IRS is outgunned in cases against corporate giants because that’s how Republican leaders want it to be. They have systematically assaulted the agency’s enforcement capacity through decades of funding cuts. Instead of saving money, these cuts have cost billions: each dollar spent on the IRS results in several dollars of tax revenue collected.
January 23, 2020

On the COVID-19 health and economic crisis “The current disaster threatens our health and our economy. Ongoing crises stem from fast-accelerating climate change, skyrocketing inequality, and inadequate federal response to…
blog January 17, 2020
Why I’ve Joined the Fight for Tax Justice: Amy Hanauer

After years of watching tax policy increasingly leave communities behind, at ITEP I’ll have the chance to work with local, state and national partners on policy solutions. I’m prepared to push for a tax system that can better deliver economic, climate and racial justice; for a public sector that can prepare our kids and our grid for 2020 and beyond; and for an America that works for all of us, whether we were born in Nebraska or Hawaii, Detroit or Miami.
ITEP Work in Action January 15, 2020
Reforming Connecticut’s Tax System: A Program to Strengthen Working- and Middle-Class Families

Connecticut Voices for Children released a report that examined the state’s income and wealth inequality and the state’s regressive tax system that exacerbates these inequalities.
blog January 15, 2020
The 2013 Biden-McConnell “Fiscal Cliff” Deal Shows Why the Next President Needs a New Approach to Taxes

Americans have long wanted more progressive tax policies and have told pollsters for years that they want wealthy individuals and big corporations to pay more, not less, in taxes. The only way forward is for lawmakers and the next president to take a dramatically different approach to tax policy.
blog January 14, 2020
White House Council of Economic Advisers Crows about Lowest-Income Americans Being Infinitesimally “Wealthier”

When the White House Council of Economic Advisors last week tweeted that the poorest 50 percent of Americans’ wealth is growing 3 times faster than the wealth of the top 1 percent, we were skeptical. As it turns out, the CEA’s tweet is a reminder that the poorest 50 percent wealth grew twice as fast during Barack Obama’s second term than it has under Trump, but to this day remains far below its pre-recession share and significantly less than what it was 30 years ago.
blog January 13, 2020
Time to Throw Cucumbers

A basic understanding and idea of fairness is a trait we share with intelligent primates, which is precisely why more than two years ago as Congress was debating the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the American public disapproved of the tax bill.
blog January 7, 2020
Guilty, Not GILTI: Unclear Whether Corps Continue to Lower Their Tax Bills Via Tax Haven Abuse

President Trump and GOP lawmakers often cited corporations’ abuse of tax havens, e.g. shifting profits offshore to avoid taxes, as justification for dramatically lowering the federal corporate tax rate under…
January 7, 2020
Amy Hanauer

Amy Hanauer provides vision and leadership to bring accurate research and data to tax policy conversations. As Director, Amy raises resources, guides strategy, and works with the board and staff to make ITEP a critical part of the policy discussion around a stronger tax code. She brings nearly 30 years of experience working to create economic policy that advances social justice.
media mention January 6, 2020
Capital and Main: Two Years Later: What Has Trump’s Tax Law Delivered?

Promise: “We’re also going to eliminate tax breaks and complex loopholes taken advantage [of] by the wealthy.” – President Trump, November 29, 2017. Reality: The law kept tax loopholes in place and added new…
media mention January 3, 2020
Public News Service: Report: Many Big Companies Pay Nothing Under New Tax Law

HELENA, Mont. – During the first year of the Trump administration’s new tax law, 91 Fortune 500 companies didn’t pay a dime in federal income tax. That’s according to a new…
media mention January 3, 2020
Public News Service: Will WA Lawmakers Tackle Tax Fairness in 2020?

How can Washington state create a more just society in 2020? Two experts say the state should tax its way toward that goal. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy ranks…

ITEP's Research Priorities