Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

ITEP's Research Priorities

New York Times: Apple’s Irish Luck

October 6, 2014

Here then is one difference between what transpires in the U.S. and what transpires in Europe: The E.U. has rules intended to prevent nations from giving unjustified tax breaks to companies. “In Europe there is now a mechanism to prevent the most harmful abuses” of the tax code, said Matthew Gardner, the executive director of […]

Cronkite News: Unfair Arizona Tax System Unduly Burdens Poor Residents

October 6, 2014

Wallethub said its survey reached 1,050 people across gender, racial, income level and political lines. It compared what they saw as a fair state and local tax system with estimates of average state and local taxes from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Read more

Slate: The Kansas Miracle

October 3, 2014

In reality, however, Kansas’ job growth stagnated in 2012 and income growth fell. Far from a stimulus plan, Brownback’s tax cuts were a massive program of redistribution for the rich. According to a report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the bottom 20 percent of Kansas taxpayers saw their tax burden increase by […]

Cleveland Plain Dealer: No-Income Tax States Use Other Taxes to Pay the Bills

October 3, 2014

“Some of these states have natural advantages, or man-made advantages, that most other states don’t have, said Matthew Gardner, the executive director of the nonpartisan Institute of Tax and Economic Policy, a Washington, D.C. think tank. Read more

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Axing Ohio’s Income Tax

October 3, 2014

In 2011, the state of Florida spent $8,887 per-pupil, ranking it 38th among the states, according to a report by Governing magazine based on Census data. Ohio ranked 18th that year, spending $11,223 per pupil. That same report showed that Ohio’s graduation rate for all students was nine percentage points higher than Florida. The rate […]

Charlotte Observer: IRS Fights Ingersol-Rand over Offshore Money Routing

September 30, 2014

Ingersoll-Rand’s move to Bermuda helped kick off the first major wave of inversions more than a decade ago, said Rebecca Wilkins, senior counsel with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “It was one of the more publicized cases,” she said. “They didn’t make any bones about what they were doing. They were quite transparent […]

CNBC: Are Tax Holidays the Best Way to Promote Efficient Appliances?

September 30, 2014

And so when these weekends roll around, you either need to have opportune timing in the breakdown of your fridge, for instance, or enough money to afford the purchase of replacing one early. Such a scenario leaves out many who might not have much cash on hand, according to Matt Gardner, executive director of the […]

Forbes: Fairness and the Reality of State Tax Systems

September 30, 2014

The survey was then meshed with some of the good work done by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which has demonstrated the fact that state tax systems are decidedly regressive. Read more

Wall Street Cheat Sheet: 10 States with the Least Fair Tax System

September 30, 2014

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) estimates that the real relationship between income and state and local taxes is negative, the complete opposite of what Americans think is fair. In order to find the most and least fair tax systems in America, WalletHub analyzed and ranked the 50 states based on the fairness […]

Bloomberg BNA: Survey Says Higher Income Households Should Pay More

September 30, 2014

Using data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), WalletHub then compared what Americans think is fair to the structure of state and local tax systems.  ITEP estimates the total state and local tax burden of households at seven different points in the income distributions of each state (e.g., bottom 20 percent or […]

Washington Post: Kansas’s Midterm Election Are a Referendum on Supply-Side Economics

September 30, 2014

By Max Ehrenfraud Brownback has signed major tax breaks into law, reduced state spending and arguably made it harder for people in poverty to receive welfare. He called his initiatives “a real live experiment” in red-state governance, a choice of words he now says he regrets. “I don’t consider this an experiment,” he told The Post recently. “This is […]

WGBH: Undocument and Paying Taxes

September 26, 2014

The number of unauthorized immigrants living in the country is difficult to count accurately, as many of them live in the shadows of our public systems. But according to data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. paid more than one billion dollars in personal income tax in 2010. […]

Brownsville Herald: (Immigrants are) Big Contributors

September 26, 2014

“Immigrants, regardless of their status, pay taxes in the form of property and sales tax, and other state and federal taxes such as the federal income and payroll taxes,” the report states, noting that even unauthorized immigrants pay sales and excise taxes on their purchases and utility payments. It cites an Institute on Taxation and […]

The Tampa Bay Times: How the Greenlight Pinellas Transit Plan Would ffect your wallet

September 22, 2014

With a regressive tax, “the people who do the best are the very best off,” said Matt Gardner, executive director of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy in Washington. “It’s pretty clear that low income families are going to see a tax hike under this,” he said. “The real question is which […]

The Columbus Dispatch: John Kasich, Ed FItzgerald Disagree on Tax Policy

September 22, 2014

An analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and Policy Matters Ohio, a labor-backed research group, found that when accounting for nearly all tax changes approved in the past two budget bills, about 70 percent of Ohioans will save less than $100 this year. The study found that those with the lowest incomes […]

The Toledo Blade: Unequal and Unbalanced

September 22, 2014

“In Ohio, a separate recent study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy reported that the state’s tax changes since 2005 are giving the richest 1 percent of taxpayers — those with average annual incomes of more than $1 million — a typical tax cut of $20,000 a year. That’s a greater tax cut, […]

Knoxville News Sentinel: Moves to Repeal Hall Income Tax Begin

September 22, 2014

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy did an analysis earlier this year that found wealthy residents — income averaging $970,000 per year — would receive “a whopping 63 percent of the benefits” from repeal of the Hall while another 23 percent “would go to the federal government because residents who pay the tax would […]

Politico: State Taxes and Poverty

September 19, 2014

The left-of-center Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy today will release “State Tax Codes as Poverty Fighting Tools,” a report on how states’ tax policies are helping — or hurting — the 15 percent who live in poverty: “The fact is that nearly every state and local tax system takes a much greater share of […]

The Mobile Register: The Perfidious Penny Tax

September 19, 2014

In just 21 minutes last Tuesday, six members of Mobile’s City Council (all but Bess Rich) broke faith with their citizens, sandbagged taxpayers, hurt the city’s long-term economic development, delayed the impetus for broader tax reform, enshrined bloated municipal government as what amounts to a permanent condition, refused to remove an anvil from the backs […]

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What’s the Matter with Kansas Is What Ails All 50 States

September 18, 2014 • By Jenice Robinson

It’s easy to hold up Kansas as the poster child for regressive tax policies gone awry. By now it’s apparent Gov. Sam Brownback and his allies in the state legislature were wrong when they predicted lopsided tax cuts would boost the state’s economy.  The state will have trouble funding priorities such as education and services […]

The Daily Pennsylvanian:

September 17, 2014

In 2009, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation cancelled a number of drivers’ licenses across the state to comply with a 2002 law change. Their justification was that the licenses were flagged in their databases as possibly fraudulent. For many of these licenses, the reason they appeared fraudulent was that they had been issued to people […]

The Guardian: Want to Live in a State with No Income Tax? Make Sure You’re Super Rich First

September 17, 2014

It may sound like a dream to live in the seven US states that have no income taxes: every dollar that doesn’t go to the tax man stays in your bank account, right? Not quite. Taxes reinforce inequality, as it turns out. States with no income tax end up taxing the poor far more heavily […]

Roll Call: Wanted, Lawmakers to Invest in the Future

September 17, 2014

This sign should be plastered all over Washington, D.C., as lawmakers return from summer break. Congress has had the past five weeks to visit their homes and travel on America’s crumbling highway system. It is time for lawmakers to craft a long-term solution which includes multiple funding sources for transportation infrastructure, rather than relying on […]

The Oregonian: Finance Website Study Says Oregon Has Second-Fairest Tax System in U.S.

September 17, 2014

Oregon’s tax system takes a lot of hits, from business figures who think high income taxes discourage investment to seniors who say it’s a struggle to pay property taxes on a fixed income.… This approach certainly fits with the approach of such groups as Citizens for Tax Justice, which has long argued that most state […]

Alston Telegraph: Illinois Not the Worst–for Once

September 17, 2014

It’s always nice when Illinois is not at the absolute bottom of a list. Imagine — finding a reason to rejoice because we are not the worst. So WalletHub study author John S. Kiernan first tried to determine what constitutes a fair state and local tax system. His crew started with an online survey to […]