Alex Welch – Page 55

ITEP's Research Priorities

media mention October 24, 2018
Bloomberg: Kamala Harris Tax Plan Would Cost $2.8 Trillion, Conservative Group Says

ITEP’s Wiehe said the plan is more highly targeted than the 2017 tax law to help low-income workers. The poorest 20 percent would see a $2,100 benefit under the Harris plan, compared with $80 under the GOP plan, she said. About 123 million workers would receive tax breaks under the plan, according to Wiehe.
blog October 24, 2018
Shaking up TCJA: How a Proposed New Credit Could Shift Federal Tax Cuts from the Wealthy and Corporations to Working People

A new federal proposal, the Livable Incomes for Families Today (LIFT) the Middle Class Act, would create a new refundable tax credit for low- and middle-income working families who were little more than an afterthought in last year’s federal tax overhaul. This proposal would take the place of TCJA, providing tax cuts similar in cost to the recent federal tax law but targeted toward working people rather than the wealthy. ITEP analyzed the bill, proposed by California Senator Kamala Harris, and compared its potential impact to TCJA.
ITEP Work in Action October 24, 2018
Real Change: Study: Washington Bottoms Out on US Tax Assessment

Guess what? Washington state’s taxation system continues to be one of the most regressive in the country.

This news comes from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), which did a deep dive into the taxation policies of all 50 states.
media mention October 24, 2018
The Fiscal Times: Democrats Take Aim at Republicans on Entitlement Cuts

The ITEP analysis of federal tax cuts from 2001 to 2018 found that they had reduced revenues by trillions of dollars, with a big chunk of the benefits flowing to the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers. “By the end of 2025, the tally of tax cuts will grow to $10.6 trillion,” the ITEP report says. “Nearly $2 trillion of this amount will have gone to the richest 1 percent.”
ITEP Work in Action October 24, 2018
The Journal Record: Prosperity Policy: An Upside-down Tax System

A modestly progressive income tax slightly offsets our regressive sales taxes. But Oklahoma lawmakers cut our top income tax rate by nearly 25 percent since 2004, further tipping the scales to the wealthiest households. Then while grappling with massive budget shortfalls caused in part by these tax cuts, lawmakers took aim at measures that primarily benefit low- and middle-income working families by making the state Earned Income Tax Credit non-refundable and freezing the state standard deduction, while leaving cuts to the top income tax rate in place.
ITEP Work in Action October 24, 2018
Hawaii Public Radio: Hawaii Tax System Places Larger Burden on Low Income Residents

Low-income residents in Hawaii are paying a higher share of their income in taxes than higher level earners. That is the conclusion of a recent report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy titled Who Pays? The Hawaii tax system is considered highly regressive, due to heavy reliance on the General Excise Tax, or GET. This is despite a progressive, graded state income tax and the lowest property taxes in the nation.
ITEP Work in Action October 23, 2018
Third and State: Pennsylvania’s Terrible Tax Code Asks More of You as You Make Less: Hitting Community’s of Color Especially Hard

The Commonwealth once again claims its spot in the “Terrible 10” most unfair tax structures in the nation. The lowest 20% of income earners in the state pays more than double (2.3 times) their share of family income on state and local taxes than the top 1%.
ITEP Work in Action October 23, 2018
Hawai’i Budget & Policy Center: Hawaii’s Tax System Exacerbates Inequality

A new report out from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) provides the vital statistics for each state’s tax system. It lays out, in clear and compelling numbers, the sobering message that Hawaiʻi taxes—and those in the United States on average—increase inequality between rich and poor.
ITEP Work in Action October 23, 2018
Florida Policy Institute: Amendment 5 Would Lock in the Regressive Policies and Abysmal Funding Levels that Perpetuate Inequality

Florida’s unfair tax system, which forces low-income residents to contribute the most as a share of their household incomes, along with the state’s worst-in-the-nation per-person investment in public services, would be locked in under Amendment 5.
media mention October 23, 2018
NBC: Democrats Find New Ways to Talk About Entitlement Cuts in Campaign’s Closing Days

Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee issued the study, based on calculations by the non-profit Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, late last week. It shows that the estimated $2 trillion cost of the Bush and Trump-era tax cuts through 2025 is the same amount which Republicans have proposed cutting from Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and Obamacare.
blog October 23, 2018
Tax Policies Have Increased Inequality, and So Would Entitlement Cuts

Conversations about economics often take place on different planets, it seems. Economists and analysts note rising inequality in America. And it’s not just lefty analysts. The credit ratings firm Moody’s chimed in earlier this month, warning that inequality “is a key social consideration that will impact the U.S.’ credit profile through multiple rating factors, including economic, institutional and fiscal strength.”
ITEP Work in Action October 23, 2018
Enid News & Eagle: A Low Tax State for Only Some Oklahomans

While Oklahoma has a reputation as a low tax state, poor and middle-income Oklahomans are actually paying a greater share of their income in taxes than the national average, while the richest 5 percent of households — with annual incomes of $194,500 or more — pay less.
ITEP Work in Action October 23, 2018
Washington Examiner: Think tank: Texas Isn’t a Low-tax State if You’re Poor

Carl Davis for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy: [ M]any states traditionally considered to be “low-tax states” are actually high-tax for their poorest residents. The “low tax” label is typically assigned to states that either lack a personal income tax or that collect a comparatively low amount of tax revenue overall. But a focus on these measures can cause lawmakers to overlook the fact that state tax systems impact different taxpayers in very different ways, and that low-income taxpayers in particular often do not experience these states as being even remotely “low tax.”
ITEP Work in Action October 22, 2018
Beacon Journal/Ohio.Com Editorial Board: A Taxing Matter Goes Missing in the Governor’s Race

It follows that low- and middle-income Ohioans pay a higher share than the national average, and wealthy Ohioans pay a lower share.

To a degree, that is expected in view of the vastly larger incomes of wealthy Ohioans. At the same time, the state would be well served by altering the shares to make the state and local system more fair, to reflect how new income in recent years, even decades, has flowed largely to households at the highest income rungs.
ITEP Work in Action October 22, 2018
NorthJersey.com: 2018 Elections: Candidates Taking Wait-and-See Approach to SALT Deductions

A study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a non-partisan think tank, found that a majority of New Jersey taxpayers in every income group will pay less taxes next year than they did in 2017 as a result of last year’s federal tax-code overhaul.

The cap is expected to affect those in high-income brackets the most. Thousands of New Jersey homeowners rushed to prepay their 2018 taxes in December to take advantage of bigger deductions on their 2017 returns before the cap took effect.
ITEP Work in Action October 22, 2018
NC Policy Watch: North Carolina’s Tax Code Isn’t Helping the State’s Growing Inequality

Despite claims by the architects of North Carolina’s failed tax-cut experiment, policy choices since 2013 have not ensured that middle and low-income taxpayers are paying lower shares of their income in state and local taxes. Instead the richest taxpayers—whose average income is more than $1 million—continue to pay 33 percent less in state and local taxes as a share of their income than taxpayers who have averages incomes annually of $11,000, a threshold that aligns with deep poverty.
media mention October 22, 2018
The Real News Network: How Dismantling an Obscure Tax Created an American Aristocracy

Republicans’ decades-long efforts to gut the estate tax is creating a permanent ultra-rich class, and undermining the government’s ability to pay for popular programs like Social Security and Medicare.
media mention October 22, 2018
Christian Science Monitor: A New Candidate Class: Schoolteachers Running For Office

North Carolina, one of six states where teachers held strikes before school let out last spring, “is an example of how lawmakers have prioritized tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy over public services,” says Meg Wiehe, deputy director of the Washington, DC-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, and a North Carolina resident. “The big tax-cutting spree started here in 2013, and they’ve continued cutting.”
ITEP Work in Action October 22, 2018
Idaho Statesman: Poor Idahoans Pay Largest Share of Taxes, Study Finds

Low-income Idahoans were hit hardest by property and sales taxes, ITEP reported. The lowest-earning segment spent 3.3 percent of income on property tax and 6 percent of income on sales and excise taxes (the latter are sometimes known as “sin taxes”).
ITEP Work in Action October 21, 2018
Tulsa World: Political Notebook: Report Says Oklahoma’s State and Local Taxes Among the Most Regressive in the Nation

Oklahoma’s state and local taxes are among the most regressive in the country, according to a report released last week by the Institute on Taxation and Policy.
ITEP Work in Action October 20, 2018
KTVB: Idaho Tax Analysis

Study finds lower income Idahoans paying higher tax rates than those with higher incomes.
ITEP Work in Action October 19, 2018
CPPP: The Staggering Unfairness of Our State Tax System

Here’s one way to think about it: Families at the top of the income ladder receive 20 percent of all personal income in Texas, but pay only 8.5 percent of all state and local taxes. Families at the bottom of the scale receive only three percent of all income, but pay 5.7 percent of all taxes.
ITEP Work in Action October 19, 2018
WVTF: Study: State Taxes Have Disproportionate Impact On Lower Income Virginians

Virginians who make the least amount of money pay 40 percent more taxes as a percent of their income than the wealthiest Virginians. That’s according to a new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which says Virginia’s tax code is upside down.
ITEP Work in Action October 19, 2018
WOWK TV: Tax Issues in West Virginia

WOWK TV – Sean O’Leary, of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, talks to Mark Curtis about a new report that shows there’s room improve West Virginia’s upside-down tax system.
ITEP Work in Action October 19, 2018
FOX13 SLC: Middle Income Utahns Bear Brunt of State and Local Tax Burden

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy released a report showing how every state and the District of Columbia use tax policy in regressive and progressive ways.

Their conclusion: all but five states and the District of Columbia have regressive systems, meaning they favor the wealthy over middle and/or low-income earners.