Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP)
Policy Matters Ohio: A Better Earned Income Tax Credit Will Help Ohio’s Working Families

Ohio’s leaders can use the tax system to increase economic stability for every family in the state. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a proven, powerful tool to do just that. In 2021, the federal EITC lifted about 5.3 million people above the poverty line, including nearly 3 million children. Read more.

KALW’s Your Call: Debt Ceiling Agreement Targets the Poor While Protecting the Wealthy

May 30, 2023

ITEP Executive Director Amy Hanauer appeared on “Your Call” discussing the debt ceiling agreement. Listen here.

ITEP Statement: Debt Deal Avoids the Elephant in the Room

It’s a relief to see that Congressional leaders and the President have come to an agreement to raise the debt limit and avert an economic disaster. But by instituting work requirements for critical assistance programs and rescinding important funding to crack down on wealthy tax cheats, this deal will rig the economy even more in favor of the most well-off Americans while failing to fix the real structural problems that led to the current debt crisis in the first place.

North Carolina Budget & Tax Center: Tax Changes in NC Senate Budget Plan Benefit Richest, Worsen Racial Inequities

The NC Senate tax plan will double down on the path to zero income tax — keeping in place the elimination of the corporate income tax and reducing the personal income tax to 2.49 percent after 2029 — to benefit the very wealthy and profitable corporations. Read more.

Governing: What’s Driving This Year’s Ambitious Tax Cuts?

May 24, 2023

Revenues are slowing but lawmakers, at least in red states, have continued to enact major tax cuts this year. Read more.

San Francisco Examiner: $66M Salesforce Program to Close Educational Gaps Has Only Widened Them

May 24, 2023

Ten years ago, Salesforce pledged millions to San Francisco’s public schools to help close an achievement gap between the district’s Black and brown students, who scored lower than their white and Asian peers in math and science courses. But a decade and $66 million later, that gap has only widened. Read more.

Arizona Center for Economic Progress: Extending the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Will Further Solidify An Unequal Federal Income Tax Structure for Generations

A new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) predicts that making permanent the temporary provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) will cost nearly $290 billion in 2026. H.R. 976, the TCJA Permanency Act, would permanently enshrine the portions of the TCJA that were set to expire in 2025. In Arizona, […]

Washington Post: How California’s Wild Weather Brought the Debt-Ceiling ‘X Date’ Closer

May 22, 2023

As President Biden and lawmakers scramble to strike a debt ceiling deal before the government runs out of money, each day counts — to the tune of about $17 billion. That’s how much the U.S. Treasury spends daily, on average, to keep the government functioning. Read more.

Massachusetts Budget & Policy Center: What’s Race Got to Do With It? Some Tax Proposals Would Widen Racial Inequality, Others Would Advance Equity

Lawmakers have proposed a variety of tax cuts, some of which would provide outsize benefits to the most affluent households and widen existing racial and economic disparities. Other proposed tax changes would make the Commonwealth more equitable by targeting benefits to lower-income households who need them the most. Read more.

U.S. Senate Budget Committee: Extending Trump Tax Cuts Would Add $3.5 Trillion to the Deficit, According to CBO

According to a report released today by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), extending the Trump tax cuts would add $3.5 trillion to the deficit through 2033. Read more.

Oklahoma Policy Institute: Flat Tax, Tax Triggers Would Make Oklahoma’s Tax System Less Fair, Less Adequate, and less stable

With less than two weeks left in the 2023 legislative session, lawmakers have very little time remaining to reach agreement on, reveal, and adopt the Fiscal Year 2024 state budget. Bills that would change tax policy are typically unveiled as part of the budget package. Though they have not yet been introduced, this year’s budget […]

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The Politics of the Debt Ceiling Fight: A Numbers Game

May 16, 2023

Republicans focus on the size of the federal debt in demanding spending cuts in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling. Democrats highlight the number of Americans who would lose benefits if those cuts are made. Read more.

The Texas Tribune: Why Tax Policy Experts Fear the Texas House Plan to Lower Property Taxes Could Have Dire Ripple Effects

May 16, 2023

Both the House and the Senate’s proposals on property tax cuts would give modest savings to the typical Texas homeowner, but critics say the House plan could create vast inequities and disproportionately benefit wealthy homeowners. Read more.

States Looking to Make Property Taxes Affordable Should Turn to ‘Circuit Breakers’

Many state legislatures this year have been considering property tax cuts – but too many are ignoring the solution that speaks more directly to questions of property tax affordability than any other policy option: the “circuit breaker."

OpenSky Policy Institute: Proposed Property Tax Breaks Benefit Wealthy While Restricting School Revenue

The Legislature on Wednesday and Thursday will consider property tax breaks and corresponding income tax cuts that together would restrict the revenue that’s available to fund important programs that all Nebraskans rely on for years to come. Read more.

Voters Could Approve Local Capital Gains Tax in Oregon

At nearly every turn, Oregon’s tax policies widen inequality; as a result, the top 1 percent pay less state and local taxes as a share of income than the poorest residents. Taxing capital gains at the local level is an important and exciting move in the other direction – to tax income from wealth and use it to address crucial needs.

The House’s Debt Ceiling Smoke Screen: The GOP Budget Plan Gives Cover for Tax Cuts for the Rich

While it isn’t reasonable in the first place for Congress to debate whether it will pay the bills it has already incurred, some of the same lawmakers who are holding the economy hostage to exact budget cuts have decided to make the conversation even more irrational by proposing to increase deficits with tax cuts that enrich the already rich.

Minnesota Poised to Enact Landmark Loophole-Closing Corporate Tax Reforms

With Minnesota poised to enact worldwide combined reporting of corporate income taxes, business lobbyists are pulling out all the stops to make state lawmakers believe the apocalypse is upon them.

Extending Temporary TCJA Provisions: A Windfall for the Wealthy with an Enormous Price Tag

The push by Congressional Republicans to make permanent a series of tax laws that expire at the end of 2025 would cost nearly $300 billion in the first year and deliver the bulk of the tax benefits to the wealthiest Americans.

Testimony of ITEP’s Amy Hanauer Before the D.C. Tax Revision Commission

The written testimony of ITEP Executive Director Amy Hanauer is below the embedded video of the hearing. Dear D.C. Tax Revision Commission,  Thank you for inviting me to testify last week on the research of my colleagues at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. We’re grateful to have our perspective included and as a […]

The GOP is Finally Ready to Raise Taxes. (Or, When a Tax Hike is Not a Tax Hike.)

House Republicans recently voted to rescind the green energy and electric vehicle tax credits that were enacted last Congress as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. This newfound willingness to raise taxes stands in contrast to the recent position of almost the entire House Republican Caucus.

Minnesota Lawmakers Re-Envision State Tax System to Center Equity

Minnesota’s House, Senate and Governor’s office have each proposed their own vision as to how the state should maximize its $17.5 billion surplus and raise new revenue, and these tax plans make one thing clear: Minnesota lawmakers are serious about using tax policy to advance tax equity and improve the lives of Minnesotans.

Arkansas Times: A Decade of Tax Cuts for the Rich (and Pretty Much Nothing for You or Me)

May 2, 2023

Taxes help pay for the public services that many of us take for granted — most of our state budget goes to funding education and health services that benefit us all, whether we personally use them or not. But there are better and worse ways for a state to raise revenue. Read more.

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Taxes Save Babies’ Lives

May 1, 2023 • By Amy Hanauer

Taxes Save Babies’ Lives

A compelling new examination over multiple years and multiple states found that infants are more likely to survive to age one in states that raise more revenue and raise it from those most able to pay. Generating taxes from rich people and corporations can help babies make it to their first birthday.

Policy Matters Ohio: How Ohio’s Income Tax Works – and How the House Budget Would Change It

The proposed changes to the state’s personal income tax in the House substitute budget bill are another blow to Ohio’s only tax that is based on the ability to pay, weakening the public programs, institutions, and supports that make the state strong. Read more.