Alex Welch – Page 56

ITEP's Research Priorities

media mention October 19, 2018
Governing: The Week in Public Finance: Most States’ Tax Systems Worsen Income Inequality

Some people pay more than their fair share of taxes — and it’s not the rich.

According to a new report by the progressive-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), the lowest-income households pay 50 percent more, on average, of their income in state and local taxes than the wealthiest. That leads to worsening inequality in four out of every five states.

“While state and local taxes can’t eliminate income inequality, well-designed systems can help lessen the problem,” says Meg Wiehe, ITEP’s deputy director. “Meanwhile, it’s clear that steeply regressive systems only make it worse.”
ITEP Work in Action October 19, 2018
Eagle Pass Business Journal: Report: Low-Income Taxpayers Pay Most in Connecticut

The report, by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and Connecticut Voices for Children, found the state’s lowest-income earners pay 41 percent more of their income in taxes than wealthier residents. According to Jamie Mills, director of fiscal policy and economic inclusion at Children’s Voices of Connecticut, taken as a whole the tax system in the Nutmeg State is upside down – because, as in many other states, the tax on personal income is only part of total tax revenue.
ITEP Work in Action October 19, 2018
Florida Phoenix: New Study Says Florida Has the 3rd Most Unfair State and Local Tax System in US

Florida is the third largest state in the country, and according to a new report, has the third-most unfair state and local tax system in the U.S. That data comes from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), a nonpartisan, nonprofit tax policy organization.
blog October 18, 2018
Lawmakers Want Working People to Foot the Bill for Top-Heavy Tax Cuts

Earlier this week, the Treasury Department reported that the federal deficit this fiscal year climbed by 17 percent to $779 billion, and next year is expected to be at least $1 trillion.

The increased deficit comes after Congress last December passed an unpopular tax cut (The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act) that will cost nearly $2 trillion over a decade. GOP leaders repeatedly claimed the measure would pay for itself and not increase annual deficits, in spite of multiple economic predictions to the contrary.
ITEP Work in Action October 18, 2018
New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute: Report Shows Higher Effective Tax Rates for Residents with Low Incomes

Most New Hampshire residents with lower incomes pay a higher percentage of the money they earn in state and local taxes than residents with higher incomes do. In a new report released yesterday, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy conducted evaluations of state and local government tax systems in each of the 50 states and modeled their impacts on non-elderly residents. The report concludes that 45 states have tax systems that ask a greater percentage of the incomes of those with low earnings than those with the highest incomes.
media mention October 18, 2018
Chicago Tribune: A Key Issue in Illinois Governor Race — Gov. Bruce Rauner, J.B. Pritzker Have Very Different Plans for State Income Tax

Last year, state lawmakers raised income taxes and ended the state’s two-year budget impasse over the passionate objections and veto of Rauner. At the time, the governor called the move “another step in Illinois’ never-ending tragic trail of tax hikes.”
ITEP Work in Action October 18, 2018
Kentucky Center for Economic Policy: New Report Shows Kentucky’s Tax System Worsens Income Inequality

In Kentucky, the income inequality that exists between our poorest and wealthiest residents is magnified by the structure of our tax system. And thanks to the new tax law enacted by the 2018 General Assembly, that problem is getting worse.
ITEP Work in Action October 18, 2018
West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy: West Virginia’s Upside Down Tax System Grows Inequality

State and local tax systems can be effectively used to boost economic opportunity, create broadly shared prosperity and build equitable state economies. But in most states, including West Virginia, tax systems are upside down and are making inequality worse, as a new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) shows.
media mention October 18, 2018
U.S. News and World Report: Study: Residents With Lower Incomes Pay a Higher Effective Tax Rate

States and localities are filling their coffers by disproportionately burdening lower-income residents, who are taxed at a higher effective rate than top earners, according to a study released Wednesday by a tax policy group.

The 50-state analysis by the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that the lower one’s income, the higher the effective overall state and local tax rate. The study includes sales taxes, excise taxes, user fees and income taxes. In fact, states which boast low income taxes are often the most likely to have systems that end up shifting the fiscal burden to lower-income residents, Carl Davis, one of the authors of the study, told reporters in a conference call.
media mention October 18, 2018
Associated Press: Kansas Governor’s Race is Referendum on Notorious Tax Cuts

The argument over taxes is likely to dominate the campaign’s final weeks; it is playing out in television ads and was a persistent theme Tuesday. Tax cuts appeal to voters…
media mention October 18, 2018
The Pitt News: Editorial: Riding High: United States Should Follow Canada’s Pot Legalization

“We don’t know the size of the marijuana market right now,” Carl Davis, senior analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy told The Huffington Post. “But we do know that legalization would lead to a positive revenue impact on the income and sales tax side.”
ITEP Work in Action October 18, 2018
Seattle Met: Report: Washington State Taxes Are Still the Most Inequitable in the Country

In Washington state, the less money you make, the larger your percentage of income goes toward taxes.

A study from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy released on Wednesday concludes that Washington state still has the most regressive taxes in the U.S., meaning the poorest households pay a disproportionate amount of taxes compared to the richest households in the state.
media mention October 18, 2018
Bloomberg: States Could Feel Conservative Tax Pinch Even If Blue Wave Wins

Opponents say such restrictions are a recipe for political paralysis or deep budget cuts the next time the economy lapses into a recession.

“It restricts future lawmakers — even next year or in five years or ten years — from making fiscally responsible decisions,” said Meg Wiehe, deputy director of the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “Whoever is in charge of the state should be able to make decisions that are best for the state at that time.”
ITEP Work in Action October 18, 2018
NJ Spotlight: New Jersey’s Tax System Ranked Among Fairest in the Country

A report on the fairness of state and local tax policy that was released yesterday by the Washington, D.C.-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy ranked New Jersey among the…
ITEP Work in Action October 18, 2018
Message-Inquirer: Tax Study Explores ‘Who Pays?’ in Kentucky

A new study from a national economic policy research group suggests Kentucky’s tax structure has become less equitable since the last General Assembly’s tax reform legislation, putting more tax obligation on poor and middle-class Kentuckians.
media mention October 18, 2018
The Atlantic: Kamala Harris’s Trump-Size Tax Plan

An analysis of Harris’s proposal by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy finds it to be roughly the same size as the Trump tax cuts. But the average family in the bottom income quintile will see $100 in benefits from Trump’s tax initiative as of 2019, with the average family in the middle getting $800 in benefits and $55,190 for those in in the top 1 percent. In contrast, Harris’s legislation would have families in the bottom and middle of the income distribution benefit by $2,000 on average, with no effect on those at the top.
ITEP Work in Action October 18, 2018
Providence Business Journal: Study Finds the Wealthy Pay a Lesser Share of Their Income Taxes in R.I.

The greater your income in Rhode Island, the less of it you pay in state and local taxes, a new study finds.

The top one percent of Rhode Islanders [those making more than $467,700 a year] pay 7.9 percent of their income in total state and local taxes, while the bottom 20 percent [those earning less than $21,700 a year] pay 12.1 percent of their income in such taxes.
ITEP Work in Action October 18, 2018
KRWG: Lowest-Income Taxpayers in NM Pay 1.8 Times the Tax Rate Paid by the Richest New Mexicans

Commentary: A new study released by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) finds that the lowest-income New Mexicans pay a state and local tax rate that is almost double what the state’s wealthiest residents pay as a share of their income.
ITEP Work in Action October 18, 2018
Rutland Herald: In All Fairness

Anti-tax advocates across the country and in Vermont continue to push for policies that reduce tax rates for the wealthy and businesses, the report finds. However, a movement is growing in opposition to this agenda, as the public realizes that tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations mean less money to fund the things that benefit everyone: schools, parks and public spaces, infrastructure, public safety and other basic services.
media mention October 17, 2018
NJ BIZ: Report: NJ’s Top Earners Pay Lower Tax Share Than Middle-Income Families

New Jersey’s top earners enjoy vastly more wealth than the majority of New Jersey residents but pay a much lower percentage of taxes than middle-income families in the state. That’s according to a nationwide analysis released Wednesday by New Jersey Policy Perspective and the Institution of Taxation and Economic Policy.
ITEP Work in Action October 17, 2018
Big Island Now: STUDY: Hawai‘i’s Low-Income Taxpayers Carry 2nd Highest Tax Rate

The main cause of the heavy tax burden on those making the least in Hawaiʻi is the General Excise Tax (GET). Families in the lowest fifth spend 10.5% of their meager incomes on the GET, while the top 1% spend only 1.2% of their large earnings. In other words, those at the bottom spend 8.75 times more of their income on the GET than do those at the top.
ITEP Work in Action October 17, 2018
DC Fiscal Policy Institute: Narrowing Income Inequality Through the Tax Code

DC’s tax system stands out in two key ways, according to a new analysis on how state tax policies affect families at different income levels. First, taxes on DC families living on very low incomes–below about $24,000 a year–are lower than in any state in the U.S. That good news is due primarily to income and property tax credits targeted to help residents working hard to make ends meet. But the analysis shows that families with incomes just above that level pay the same share of their income in DC taxes (income, sales, and property taxes) as the District’s wealthiest residents. At a time when the income of the top fifth of DC households is 34 times larger than the bottom fifth ($320,000 compared with $9,000)—and a time of growing income gaps between Black and white residents—the District should be asking its wealthiest residents to pay more to address the city’s inequities.
ITEP Work in Action October 17, 2018
Maine Center for Economic Policy: Maine Still Has Work to Do in Building a Balanced and Adequate Tax Code

Building an inclusive economy requires tax policy that meets two conditions. The first is that those with the most are asked to pay more, or at the very least pay as great a share of their income in taxes as everyone else. The second is that enough shared resources are raised through the tax code to invest adequately in foundations of a strong economy including good schools, access to health care, and safe and modern infrastructure.
ITEP Work in Action October 17, 2018
Iowa Fiscal Partnership: Tax Inequity: Iowa’s Continuing Story

Iowa taxes its middle- and low-income families more as a share of income than it does wealthy families, a long-term trend worsened by the 2018 tax overhaul.

The latest “Who Pays” report by the Washington-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), again shows the effect of sales taxes and property taxes on lower-income households tilts Iowa’s overall tax system so the poorest pay the highest percentage in taxes.
ITEP Work in Action October 17, 2018
New Mexico Voices for Children: New Analysis: Lowest-Income Taxpayers in NM Pay 1.8 Times the Tax Rate Paid by the Richest New Mexicans

“Taxes are the way we accomplish great things for our state – build our schools and infrastructure, provide health care and public safety, and more,” said James Jimenez, executive director of New Mexico Voices for Children, which partnered with ITEP on the report release. “These systems and services underpin our economy and improve our quality of life. We all need to do our part to support them, but our current state tax system ensures that those who can afford to pay the most actually pay the least.”