Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

ITEP's Research Priorities

WUNC: Under New Tax Plan, Timing Belt Change Would Cost $30 More On This Volkswagen Jetta

September 18, 2015

  “Sen. Josh Stein, a Democrat from Wake County, disagrees. He says the plan would favor high-wage earners because everyone pays the same income tax—instead of lower rates for people who make less money, as was the case in previous North Carolina tax models—and new consumer service taxes take up a bigger proportion of the […]

Bloomberg BNA: Individual Income Tax Insights: Fifty States of Rates – State Tax Systems Don’t Play Fair

September 15, 2015

“All state tax systems are inherently unfair, at least that is the verdict issued by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). ITEP’s 2015 Who Pays: A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All Fifty States report analyzed state and local tax systems to assess the fairness with which each system is designed […]

Mother Jones: John Kasich Was Against Poor People Before He Was for Them

September 15, 2015

“Once again, the budget brought tax savings for the wealthy, and higher taxes for those who can least afford them. An analysis of the 2015 budget by the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy found that about half the benefit of the tax cuts, totaling about $1 billion, would go into the pockets of the […]

Lexington Herald-Leader: Despite stark financial outlook, Kentucky gubernatorial candidates say little about taxes

September 15, 2015

“According to the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, Kentucky’s richest 1 percent of families — those earning at least $330,000 a year — already have the lowest overall state and local tax burden, at 6 percent of income, compared to 9 percent for the poorest one-fifth of Kentucky families.”

The Washington Times: U.S. companies given Export-Import Bank subsidies keep profits offshore, skirt taxes

September 15, 2015

“Matt Gardner, the executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said companies that are both benefiting from federally backed loans and who are keeping some of their profits offshore are shortchanging U.S. taxpayers. “It’s pretty ludicrous that the federal government would subsidize any company engaging in this kind of tax avoidance,” he […]

St. Louis Post Dispatch: Nicklaus: Tax credit would be better for workers than minimum wage hike

September 15, 2015

“The federal credit has become one of the government’s most powerful antipoverty tools. It also improves progressivity, a virtue that’s lacking in many state tax systems, including Missouri’s. “It can help offset the really regressive taxes, like sales taxes and excise taxes, which hit low- and middle-income families hardest,” says Meg Wiehe, state tax policy […]

New York Daily News: #Undocumoney Campaign to Show How Much Undocumented Immigrants Contribute to U.S Economy

September 10, 2015

“According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the over 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States collectively paid $11.84 billion in state and local taxes in 2012.” Read more 

Reuters: Tax Exemption May Be Key to Move of Keurig’s Coffee Buying to Switzerland

September 8, 2015

“The fact that Keurig is doing this is pretty clearly due to a loophole in the law that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” said Matt Gardner, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C. think tank. Read more

Indianapolis Star: Transportation Funding at a Crossroads in Indiana

September 8, 2015

“Families today are spending a smaller share of their household budgets on gas taxes than they have in about three decades, and they are receiving a lower-quality transportation network in return,” according to a report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonpartisan group that studies federal, state and local tax policy. Read […]

The Toledo Blade: Labor Pains

September 8, 2015

Deindustrialization in Rust Belt economies such as Toledo have driven these changes, yet they’ve been aggravated by state government’s regressive, anti-tax agenda. The top 1 percent of Ohioans bring home more than $850,000 a year. These households will enjoy an average tax cut of $17,600 under Gov. John Kasich’s new tax plan, while the poorest […]

Journal Courier: Transportation Funding at Crossroads

September 8, 2015

“Families today are spending a smaller share of their household budgets on gas taxes than they have in about three decades, and they are receiving a lower-quality transportation network in return,” according to a report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonpartisan group that studies federal, state and local tax policy. Read […]

Daily Press: Nation Needs to Talk About Immigration, But Not the Way Donald Trump Insists

September 4, 2015

And just to shoot down one more oft-mentioned canard on this issue: According to a study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, about 8.1 million undocumented immigrants paid an estimated $11.8 billion in state and local taxes in 2012. Read more

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H&R Block Uses Corporate Lobbying Might to Make Sure Poor People Use Its Services

September 3, 2015 • By Jenice Robinson

Public outrage over the financial crisis may have subsided in recent years, but the lasting legacy is a nation that remains acutely aware of exploitative business practices that line the pockets of corporate executives and shareholders at the expense of ordinary working people. Perhaps this is why H&R Block and Intuit quietly lobbied for a […]

Report: Tax Policy Benefits Flow Heavily to Wealthiest Ohioans

August 28, 2015

The windfall for the wealthy results from cuts in state income taxes, the major tax that is based on the ability to pay, while increases in other taxes such as the sales tax fall more heavily on lower- and middle-income Ohioans. Those are the key findings of an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and […]

News and Observer: Unfair ‘Bill of Rights’

August 26, 2015

According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, “The personal income tax can be – and usually is – the fairest of the main revenue sources relied on by state and local governments. When properly structured, it insures that wealthier taxpayers pay their fair share, provides lower rates on middle-income families, completely exempts the […]

Newsmax: Pros and Cons of Illegal Immigrants Filing Taxes With IRS

August 25, 2015

Undocumented immigrants paid an estimated $10.6 billion in state and local taxes in 2010, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, CNN reported. Those tax contributions will rise significantly if illegal immigrants are allowed to work in the United States legally, said Matthew Gardner, ITEP’s executive director. Read more

Standard-Times: Undocumented Immigrants’ Economic Impact Unclear in Texas

August 24, 2015

“Meanwhile, about 1.7 million immigrants are unauthorized, according to the center. The report cites the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy as saying that in Texas unauthorized immigrants in 2010 paid more than $1.6 billion in state and local taxes. Immigrants as a whole contributed $65 billion in economic output for the state in wages, […]

Policy Mic: What Republicans Don’t Want You to Know About “Securing the Border”

August 24, 2015

New York’s place on that list is especially salient given its place as the largest of the estimated 200 “sanctuary cities” across the country. The designation reflects a decision by local governments to protect undocumented immigrants from federal law enforcement. This makes it easier to collect taxes — undocumented immigrants paid $11.84 billion in state […]

News Net 5: States are Doing What Congress Won’t on the Gas Tax

August 18, 2015

“We had quite a long drought where states weren’t willing to deal with this issue, despite the fact that their infrastructure wasn’t in great shape,” said Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “We’ve definitely seen a pretty rapid change on this issue — it’s really been pretty much a […]

Five Thirty Eight: Everything* Donald Trump’s Immigration Plan Gets Wrong

August 18, 2015

But there’s another side to the equation: taxes. Many undocumented immigrants work off the books and don’t pay taxes on their earnings. But many others do pay taxes. One recent report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimated that undocumented workers paid nearly $12 billion in state and local taxes in 2012. They […]

Minn Post: Tax and Spin: Most Families in Wisconsin, it Turns Out, Would Save on Taxes by Moving to Minnesota

August 17, 2015

For years, Wisconsin has had some of the highest residential property taxes in the country. The result is that across every income bracket, homeowners in Wisconsin pay a higher share of their income to property taxes than those in Minnesota, according to data compiled by the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy, a nonpartisan think […]

TV Newsroom: Tax-Free Weekend Offers Great Savings

August 17, 2015

“The bottom line is that whatever policy goal you want to achieve through a sales tax holiday, there are probably better ways to achieve those goals”, said Matthew Gardner, executive director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.”

Daily Lobo: Letter: Support for Trump’s Hatred of Immigrants Not Backed by Facts

August 17, 2015

An economic perspective: The Partnership for a New American Economy found that immigrants started 28 percent of new U.S. businesses in 2011, though they account for only 13 percent of the population. Disproportionately more New Mexico business owners (12.6 percent) are immigrants (10 percent of the state’s population). A new study by the Institute on […]

Slate: Don’t Fall for Back-to-School Tax Holidays

August 14, 2015

If shoppers are simply shifting their spending to save on taxes, that means the states are losing revenue. That’s certainly the position of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonpartisan think tank that estimates the popular break will cost the states offering it $300 million this year. “Revenues lost through sales tax holidays […]

Purdue Exponent: Mike Huckabee: Alienating Himself in the Name of God

August 13, 2015

“I’m still one who says that we can get rid of the Internal Revenue Service if we would pass the FairTax, which is a tax on consumption rather than a tax on people’s income, and move power back where the founders believed it should have been all along,” said Huckabee. Unfortunately, this is blatantly incorrect […]