• media mention   October 5, 2018

    NPR: It’s Been 25 Years Since The Federal Gas Tax Went Up

    Yet over those 25 years, the cost of building and maintaining roads, bridges and transit has shot up, leaving the highway trust fund, which pays the federal portion of highway and transit projects, running on empty.

    “The whole reason this tax exists is to keep our roads paved and to keep our bridges from falling down,” says Davis. “And to do that effectively, it needs to collect a sustainable amount of revenue over time to cover the cost of paving roads and maintaining bridges, and it can’t do that if it’s just not updated for decades at a time.”

  •   October 5, 2018

    Concerned about Trump-family tax gaming? His law may prompt others to dodge.

    “The IRS is wildly outgunned,” says Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a think tank in Washington. “You can’t keep cutting IRS funding and not expect more things like what The New York Times wrote about the Trumps. That’s bound to happen even more now.”

  • media mention   October 4, 2018

    Washington Post: How big developers like Trump benefit from web of tax breaks

    [Real estate investors] can fall behind on their debts and still face fewer tax penalties for having the debt forgiven than other kinds of investors, according to Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Trump took advantage of that, Wamhoff says, when he couldn’t repay debts on his Atlantic City casinos in the 1990s and early 2000s.

  • news release   October 2, 2018

    NYT Expose on Trump Family Tax Avoidance Demonstrates There’s a Different Set of Rules for the Rich and Powerful

    Following is a statement by Alan Essig, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, regarding an expose in today’s New York Times that reveals Donald Trump’s family engaged in complex schemes to avoid taxes.

  • blog   October 2, 2018

    Twelve States Offer Profitable Tax Shelter to Private School Voucher Donors; IRS Proposal Could Fix This

    A proposed IRS regulation would eliminate a tax shelter for private school donors in twelve states by making a commonsense improvement to the federal tax deduction for charitable gifts. For years, some affluent taxpayers who donate to private K-12 school voucher programs have managed to turn a profit by claiming state tax credits and federal tax deductions that, taken together, are worth more than the amount donated. This practice could soon come to an end under the IRS’s broader goal of ending misuse of the charitable deduction by people seeking to dodge the federal SALT deduction cap.

  • ITEP Work in Action   September 28, 2018

    BTC Report: Income tax rate cap amendment is costly for taxpayers, communities

    Imposing an arbitrary income tax cap in the North Carolina Constitution could fundamentally compromise our state’s ability to fund our schools, roads, and public health, as well as raise the cost of borrowing. This could all happen even as the tax load shifts even further onto middle- and low-income taxpayers and the state’s highest income taxpayers — the top 1 percent — continue to benefit from recent tax changes since 2013.

  • news release   September 28, 2018

    U.S. House Advances More Unpopular Tax Cuts That Primarily Benefit the Wealthy

    The U.S. House this week voted on so-called Tax Cuts 2.0, a package of three tax bills that, among other things, would make permanent temporary provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

    Alan Essig, ITEP’s executive director, said the following: “While top-heavy tax cuts and their inevitable effect of decimating public investments may seem peripheral to today’s news cycle, they are emblematic of the governing philosophy of those in power today.”

  •   September 26, 2018

    Tax Cuts 2.0 Resources

    The $2 trillion 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) includes several provisions set to expire at the end of 2025. GOP leaders wrote the bill this way to adhere to their own rule that limits how much a piece of legislation can add to the federal debt. But it’s clear that proponents planned all along to make those provisions permanent. Less than a month after the law passed, the White House and Republican leaders began calling for a second round of tax cuts. Now, they have introduced a bill informally called “Tax Cuts 2.0” or “Tax Reform 2.0,” which would make the temporary provisions permanent. And they falsely claim that making these provisions permanent will benefit the middle class.

  •   September 26, 2018

    Tax Cuts 2.0 – Alaska

    The $2 trillion 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) includes several provisions set to expire at the end of 2025. Now, GOP leaders have introduced a bill informally called…
  •   September 26, 2018

    Tax Cuts 2.0 – Alabama

    The $2 trillion 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) includes several provisions set to expire at the end of 2025. Now, GOP leaders have introduced a bill informally called…
  •   September 26, 2018

    Tax Cuts 2.0 – Arizona

    The $2 trillion 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) includes several provisions set to expire at the end of 2025. Now, GOP leaders have introduced a bill informally called…
  •   September 26, 2018

    Tax Cuts 2.0 – Arkansas

    The $2 trillion 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) includes several provisions set to expire at the end of 2025. Now, GOP leaders have introduced a bill informally called…
  •   September 26, 2018

    Tax Cuts 2.0 – Colorado

    The $2 trillion 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) includes several provisions set to expire at the end of 2025. Now, GOP leaders have introduced a bill informally called…
  •   September 26, 2018

    Tax Cuts 2.0 – California

    The $2 trillion 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) includes several provisions set to expire at the end of 2025. Now, GOP leaders have introduced a bill informally called…
  •   September 26, 2018

    Tax Cuts 2.0 – District of Columbia

    The $2 trillion 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) includes several provisions set to expire at the end of 2025. Now, GOP leaders have introduced a bill informally called…
  •   September 26, 2018

    Tax Cuts 2.0 – Delaware

    The $2 trillion 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) includes several provisions set to expire at the end of 2025. Now, GOP leaders have introduced a bill informally called…
  •   September 26, 2018

    Tax Cuts 2.0 – Georgia

    The $2 trillion 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) includes several provisions set to expire at the end of 2025. Now, GOP leaders have introduced a bill informally called…
  •   September 26, 2018

    Tax Cuts 2.0 – Florida

    The $2 trillion 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) includes several provisions set to expire at the end of 2025. Now, GOP leaders have introduced a bill informally called…
  •   September 26, 2018

    Tax Cuts 2.0 – Hawaii

    The $2 trillion 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) includes several provisions set to expire at the end of 2025. Now, GOP leaders have introduced a bill informally called…
  •   September 26, 2018

    Tax Cuts 2.0 – Idaho

    The $2 trillion 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) includes several provisions set to expire at the end of 2025. Now, GOP leaders have introduced a bill informally called…
  •   September 26, 2018

    Tax Cuts 2.0 – Illinois

    The $2 trillion 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) includes several provisions set to expire at the end of 2025. Now, GOP leaders have introduced a bill informally called…
  •   September 26, 2018

    Tax Cuts 2.0 – Iowa

    The $2 trillion 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) includes several provisions set to expire at the end of 2025. Now, GOP leaders have introduced a bill informally called…
  •   September 26, 2018

    Tax Cuts 2.0 – Indiana

    The $2 trillion 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) includes several provisions set to expire at the end of 2025. Now, GOP leaders have introduced a bill informally called…
  •   September 26, 2018

    Tax Cuts 2.0 – Kentucky

    The $2 trillion 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) includes several provisions set to expire at the end of 2025. Now, GOP leaders have introduced a bill informally called…
  •   September 26, 2018

    Tax Cuts 2.0 – Kansas

    The $2 trillion 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) includes several provisions set to expire at the end of 2025. Now, GOP leaders have introduced a bill informally called…