Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

ITEP's Research Priorities

ITEP Work in Action  

Hawai’i Budget & Policy Center: Hawaii’s Tax System Exacerbates Inequality

October 23, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

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  

Florida Policy Institute: Amendment 5 Would Lock in the Regressive Policies and Abysmal Funding Levels that Perpetuate Inequality

October 23, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

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.

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NBC: Democrats Find New Ways to Talk About Entitlement Cuts in Campaign’s Closing Days

October 23, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

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.

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Tax Policies Have Increased Inequality, and So Would Entitlement Cuts

October 23, 2018 • By Steve Wamhoff

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  

Enid News & Eagle: A Low Tax State for Only Some Oklahomans

October 23, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

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  

Washington Examiner: Think tank: Texas Isn’t a Low-tax State if You’re Poor

October 23, 2018 • By Carl Davis

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  

Beacon Journal/Ohio.Com Editorial Board: A Taxing Matter Goes Missing in the Governor’s Race

October 22, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

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  

NorthJersey.com: 2018 Elections: Candidates Taking Wait-and-See Approach to SALT Deductions

October 22, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

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  

NC Policy Watch: North Carolina’s Tax Code Isn’t Helping the State’s Growing Inequality

October 22, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

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.

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The Real News Network: How Dismantling an Obscure Tax Created an American Aristocracy

October 22, 2018 • By Matthew Gardner

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. 

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Christian Science Monitor: A New Candidate Class: Schoolteachers Running For Office

October 22, 2018 • By Meg Wiehe

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  

Idaho Statesman: Poor Idahoans Pay Largest Share of Taxes, Study Finds

October 22, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

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  

Tulsa World: Political Notebook: Report Says Oklahoma’s State and Local Taxes Among the Most Regressive in the Nation

October 21, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

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  

KTVB: Idaho Tax Analysis

October 20, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

Study finds lower income Idahoans paying higher tax rates than those with higher incomes.

ITEP Work in Action  

CPPP: The Staggering Unfairness of Our State Tax System

October 19, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

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  

WVTF: Study: State Taxes Have Disproportionate Impact On Lower Income Virginians

October 19, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

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  

WOWK TV: Tax Issues in West Virginia

October 19, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

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  

FOX13 SLC: Middle Income Utahns Bear Brunt of State and Local Tax Burden

October 19, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

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.

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Governing: The Week in Public Finance: Most States’ Tax Systems Worsen Income Inequality

October 19, 2018 • By Meg Wiehe

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  

Eagle Pass Business Journal: Report: Low-Income Taxpayers Pay Most in Connecticut

October 19, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

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  

Florida Phoenix: New Study Says Florida Has the 3rd Most Unfair State and Local Tax System in US

October 19, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

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.

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Lawmakers Want Working People to Foot the Bill for Top-Heavy Tax Cuts

October 18, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

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  

New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute: Report Shows Higher Effective Tax Rates for Residents with Low Incomes

October 18, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

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  

Chicago Tribune: A Key Issue in Illinois Governor Race — Gov. Bruce Rauner, J.B. Pritzker Have Very Different Plans for State Income Tax

October 18, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

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  

Kentucky Center for Economic Policy: New Report Shows Kentucky’s Tax System Worsens Income Inequality

October 18, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

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.