Alex Welch – Page 54

ITEP's Research Priorities

blog January 23, 2019
Thoughts about a Federal Wealth Tax and How It Could Raise Revenue, Address Income Inequality

Wealth inequality is much greater than income inequality. The 1 percent of Americans with the highest incomes receive about a fifth of the total income in the United States. In contrast, the top 1 percent of wealth holders in the United States own 42 percent of the nation’s wealth, according to estimates from University of California at Berkley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.
news release January 23, 2019
New Report Makes the Case for a Wealth Tax; Analysis Finds Such a Tax Could Raise More Than $1 Trillion Over a Decade

A federal wealth tax on the top 0.1 percent of households could raise significant tax revenue, curb growing economic inequality and help make the tax system fairer, a new report released today by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) finds.
news release January 23, 2019
Five Years in, Cannabis Tax Haul Rivals or Exceeds Alcohol Taxes in Many States

A first-of-its-kind look at state excise taxes on legal cannabis sales finds that taxing the substance can be a meaningful source of state revenue but cautions that achieving sustainable revenues over time will be difficult under the price-based tax structures adopted in most states thus far.
report January 23, 2019
Taxing Cannabis

State policy toward cannabis is evolving rapidly. While much of the debate around legalization has rightly focused on potential health and criminal justice impacts, legalization also has revenue implications for state and local governments that choose to regulate and tax cannabis sales. This report describes the various options for structuring state and local taxes on cannabis and identifies approaches currently in use. It also undertakes an in-depth exploration of state cannabis tax revenue performance and offers a glimpse into what may lie ahead for these taxes.
blog January 23, 2019
Cannabis Tax Debates are Ramping Up; Here’s What We’ve Learned from Five Years of Cannabis Taxation Thus Far

This year lawmakers in Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont will all be debating the taxation of recreational cannabis. A new ITEP report reviews the track record of recreational cannabis taxes thus far and offers recommendations for structuring cannabis taxes to achieve stable revenue growth over the long haul.
ITEP Work in Action January 22, 2019
Time to restore fairness to the personal income tax and break the boom-or-bust cycle

Our citizen legislators have lots of choices to make when they meet for the annual legislative session every January – how to prioritize spending on public services like education, health care and public safety, which laws to enact, and whether to make changes to our state’s tax code.
ITEP Work in Action January 17, 2019
Beacon Journal/Ohio.com Editorial Board: How Ohio’s Tax System Puts a Heavier Burden on the Poor

The Institute for Taxation & Economic Policy performed the analysis for Policy Matters. Consider that those Ohio families with annual incomes below $19,000 paid an average 12.3 percent of their…
report January 17, 2019
A Simple Fix for a $17 Billion Loophole: How States Can Reclaim Revenue Lost to Tax Havens

Enacting Worldwide Combined Reporting or Complete Reporting in all states, this report calculates, would increase state tax revenue by $17.04 billion dollars. Of that total, $2.85 billion would be raised through domestic Combined Reporting improvements, and $14.19 billion would be raised by addressing offshore tax dodging (see Table 1). Enacting Combined Reporting and including known tax havens would result in $7.75 billion in annual tax revenue, $4.9 billion from income booked offshore.
blog January 17, 2019
How States Can Help Shut Down Tax Havens by Cracking Down on Profit Shifting

A core problem with our corporate income tax laws at the federal and state levels is that they allow companies to use accounting gimmicks to shift significant amounts of their profits into low or zero-tax jurisdictions. Federal lawmakers had an opportunity to address this with the 2017 tax law, but they failed to do so, and, in fact, the law may incentivize more offshore tax avoidance. State lawmakers, however, can buck the federal trend and crack down on profit shifting themselves.
January 16, 2019
Who Pays and Why It Matters | MECEP Policy Insights Conference Keynote Address

States have broad discretion in how they secure the resources to fund education, health care, infrastructure, and other priorities important to communities and families. Aidan Davis with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy will offer a national perspective on state-level approaches to funding public investments and the implications of those approaches on tax fairness and revenue adequacy, and their economic outcomes. She’ll also provide insight on what’s in store for 2019 among the states.
ITEP Work in Action January 16, 2019
Missouri Budget Project: Senate Tax Bills Provide Unfair Giveaways, Leave Communities Reeling

An analysis by the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy found that 91% of the tax cut would flow to the wealthiest 20% of Missourians.
ITEP Work in Action January 15, 2019
Maine Center for Economic Policy: The Prosperity Budget

Where State of Working Maine 2018 investigated the nature of work in the modern economy and made recommendations to reaffirm our values of fairness and respect in the workplace, the…
news release January 15, 2019
Gov. Cuomo Has the Right Idea on How to Tax Recreational Cannabis

Following is a statement by Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, regarding the cannabis tax structure unveiled by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
ITEP Work in Action January 14, 2019
MassBudget: 14 Options for Raising Progressive Revenue

People in Massachusetts seek to live in communities that provide a high quality of life for their family and neighbors. We value good schools, police and fire protection, libraries and…
ITEP Work in Action January 11, 2019
Policy Matters Ohio: New Research Underlines Need to Overhaul State Tax Code

Ohio’s upside-down tax system takes an especially heavy toll on black and Latino residents. That’s the finding of new research from the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy (ITEP), a…
report January 9, 2019
Moving Toward More Equitable State Tax Systems

New and returning policymakers have a tremendous opportunity to improve their constituents’ lives and their states’ economies through tax policy. This report distills the findings of “Who Pays?” into policy recommendations that can serve as a guide to new lawmakers, advocates, and others seeking to improve their state’s tax codes. It explains the importance of favoring taxes on income and wealth over taxes on consumption, the value of certain targeted tax benefits for families living in poverty, the need to abandon ineffective, unnecessary tax subsidies for high-income households, and the promise of bold new options for improving the regressive distributional outcomes of state and local tax policies.
blog January 8, 2019
How to Think About the 70% Top Tax Rate Proposed by Ocasio-Cortez (and Multiple Scholars)

The uproar deliberately steers clear of any real policy discussion about what a significantly higher marginal tax rate would mean. Her critics are mostly the same lawmakers who enacted a massive tax cut for the rich last year that was not debated seriously or supported by serious research. Meanwhile, multiple scholarly studies conclude a 70 percent top tax rate would be an optimal way to tax the very rich. Ocasio-Cortez has brought more attention to the very real need to raise revenue and do it in a progressive way.
ITEP Work in Action January 2, 2019
Arizona Center for Economic Progress: Wrong Priorities: It Doesn’t Make Sense to Give a Tax Cut to the Rich While Arizona Asks Children in Public Schools to Wait

Arizona stands to gain $130 million to $230 million in General Fund revenues if it conforms the Arizona tax code to the federal tax changes enacted in 2017. Rather than…
blog December 24, 2018
ITEP’s 12 Days of Tax Policy

Sometimes policy developments move at a rapid-fire pace, so we’re taking time over the next 12 days to reflect on some of the most significant federal and state tax policy developments and/or tax policy analyses that happened this year.
ITEP Work in Action December 20, 2018
Economic Progress Institute: Rhode Island Standard of Need

The RISN calculates a household budget for families with two young children, and for single adults. The no-frills budget includes the costs of housing, food, transportation, health care, child care and other necessities including clothing, toiletries and telephone service. The RISN also demonstrates how work supports like food assistance, tax credits, and child care and health care subsidies help close the gap between income and basic need expenses. By taking all of these factors into account, the RISN provides a more realistic measure of the economic security of Rhode Islanders than the federal poverty level.
blog December 20, 2018
ITEP Winter Reading (and Listening) List

It’s that time of year again. Members of Congress and the White House are negotiating the federal budget. Winter temperatures are unpredictable due to climate change. And news outlets, organizations and others are releasing end-of-year lists and the tax wonks at ITEP are joining the chorus. If you’re lucky enough to have some time off over the next couple of weeks or find yourself curling up on the couch this winter in need of a way to pass the time, the tax policy wonks at ITEP have compiled a winter reading/listening list that will appeal to wonks and non-wonks alike.
ITEP Work in Action December 17, 2018
Voices for Utah Children: Response to Govenor’s Budget Recommendations FY2020

As a percent of income, 95% of Utah’s families pay more in sales and other local taxes than the top 5% of higher income families.
ITEP Work in Action December 15, 2018
Georgia Budget & Policy Institute: Increase the State Tobacco Tax for Healthier Georgia

Georgia could raise more than $400 million a year to make critical investments for the health and well-being of Georgia residents by raising the cigarette tax by at least $1 per pack. Georgia has the third-lowest state cigarette tax rate out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. At 37 cents per pack, it falls far below the national average of $1.72. Over the past decade, many states have increased tobacco tax rates as a way to raise new revenue while reducing smoking rates and the health care costs associated with smoking. Georgia has not increased its cigarette tax rate since 2003.
report December 6, 2018
The Federal Estate Tax: An Important Progressive Revenue Source

For years, wealth and income inequality have been widening at a troubling pace. One study estimated that the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans held 42 percent of the nation’s wealth in 2012, up from 28 percent in 1989. Lawmakers have exacerbated this trend by dramatically cutting federal taxes on inherited wealth, most recently by doubling the estate tax exemption as part of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Further, lawmakers have done little to stop aggressive accounting schemes designed to avoid the estate tax altogether. This report explains how the percentage of estates subject to the federal estate tax has dropped dramatically from 2.16 percent in 2000 to just 0.06 percent in 2018, a 34-fold decrease in 19 years.
blog December 4, 2018
Housing for All? Developers Bulldoze Taxpayers in Affordable Housing Debate

Affordable housing advocates across the nation are attempting to address the problem at the local level, but they often face political and community opposition. These challenges are currently playing out in Baltimore, which is turning into a case study in how the best-planned civic interventions run into tough road blocks when it comes to tax increases versus moneyed special interest who seek to block those tax increases.