Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

ITEP's Research Priorities

Facing South: Corporations are the real moochers

December 17, 2012

(Original Post) By Phil Mattera, Dirt Diggers Digest The firestorm over Mitt Romney’s closed-door comments depicting nearly half the U.S. population as parasites is coming mainly from those defending seniors, the poor and the disabled. But what’s really wrong with the Ayn Rand worldview Romney was parroting is that it ignores those who are the […]

The Huffington Post: Poor Americans Pay Double The State, Local Tax Rates Of Top One Percent

December 17, 2012

(Original Post) The Huffington Post  |  By Bonnie Kavoussi Posted: 09/21/2012 3:48 pm EDTUpdated: 09/21/2012 4:07 pm EDT Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney may be almost right in claiming that 47 percent of Americans “pay no income tax,” but the poorest Americans pay a far higher state and local tax rate than those in the […]

Current TV: All 50 states have a regressive tax system — how does that impact the ’47 percent’?

December 17, 2012

(Original Post) Viewpoint StaffSeptember 21, 2012 So the issue of the week is all about taxes — who pays how much to the government, and do the rich pay more or less. Well, we all know federal income taxes are only one part of the total tax burden. There are lots of other taxes, such […]

San Francisco Chronicle: Calif. voters face 2 tax measures on ballot

December 17, 2012

(Original Post) Wyatt BuchananUpdated 11:30 p.m., Saturday, September 22, 2012 Sacramento — Californians will decide two tax measures on the November ballot that would have similar impacts on their wallets but vastly different, and in some ways unknowable, effects on the state’s budget and funding for public education. Proposition 30 and Proposition 38 are competing […]

Business Insider: Every State’s State/Local Tax System Taxes the Poor More than the Wealthy–And All Exceed Federal Taxes

December 17, 2012

(Original Post) Sep. 24, 2012, 8:11 AM by Kenneth Thomas Every State’s State/Local Tax System Taxes the Poor More than the Wealthy–And All Exceed Federal Taxes A new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) shows that in every state in the country, the bottom 20% of households pay more of their […]

The News-Sentinel: Alternative to Gregg, Pence plans: roll back sales tax to 6.5 percent

December 17, 2012

(Original Post) By Andrea Neal For The News-SentinelMonday, September 24, 2012 – 9:44 am At 3.4 percent, Indiana’s personal income tax is one of the nation’s lowest. A half-dozen states, including Texas and Florida, don’t charge income tax at all; 41 states impose a rate higher than Indiana’s. At 7 percent, the Indiana sales tax […]

The Huntsville Times: Looking for a spare $1 billion

December 17, 2012

(Original Post) Published: Monday, September 24, 2012, 7:29 AM     Updated: Monday, September 24, 2012, 7:31 AM Mike Hollis, The Huntsville Times By Mike Hollis, The Huntsville Times Think of it as Alabama’s $1 billion question. Will the money to repay the state’s savings account for natural gas royalties be siphoned out of public school classrooms […]

The Huffington Post: Will Someone Please Increase My Taxes!?

December 17, 2012

(Original Post) The article began: Last November, Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy issued a major study of the federal income taxes paid, or not paid, by 280 big, profitable Fortune 500 corporations. That report found, among other things, that 30 of the companies paid no federal income tax […]

The Arka-Tech: There’s Lies, Damned lies, and there’s Romney’s 47 Percent

December 17, 2012

Written by Nicholas Tackett Saturday, 29 September 2012 17:29 Last week, remarks made by Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney came to light, and the results have not been pretty for the Romney campaign. These remarks formed a disparaging light on nearly half of the nation, casting 47 percent of people as ‘takers’ who depend on […]

Mercury News: Superrich stay put in high-tax states like California

December 17, 2012

(Original Post) By Mike Rosenberg [email protected]:   10/01/2012 10:18:54 AM PDTUpdated:   10/01/2012 10:25:43 AM PDT Some of us might love to hate ’em, but we need millionaires in California — or we’d lose tens of billions of dollars in tax revenue that pays for things like education and public safety. So should we be freaking out […]

Atlanta Journal Constitution: Southerners much of the 47 percent

December 17, 2012

By Alan Essig It’s time to put an end to the rumor that nearly half of Americans don’t have any “skin in the game” when it comes to paying taxes. This popular claim of late among politicians both in Georgia and on the national stage is part of a broader narrative that government is creating […]

Politifact: Joe Kyrillos says United States has highest corporate tax rate in the world

December 17, 2012

(Original Post) Says the United States has the “highest corporate tax rate in the world.” Joseph Kyrillos on Thursday, October 4th, 2012 in a debate on NJTV Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Joe Kyrillos said increased revenues are needed to deal with the national debt, but the path to that goal isn’t paved with tax hikes. […]

Business Spectator: Huawei’s legitimacy struggle

December 17, 2012

(Original Post) Alexander Liddington-Cox Published 9:53 AM, 10 Oct 2012 It’s becoming increasingly clear that if China’s largest telco equipment company Huawei wants to do a meaningful amount of business in the western world, it’s going to have to list on the New York Stock Exchange. The powerful US House Intelligence Committee slammed Huawei yesterday […]

The Bellingham Herald: Pro and con- Pierce Transit tax

December 17, 2012

Published: October 15, 2012 By Jonah Jensen, John McCluskey & Erik Bjornson — Contributing writers NO: Measure would burden the poor and harm Tacoma’s economy Tacomans have been extremely generous in the last few years, paying an ever-increasing sales tax rate for new or increased government services. For the first time in Tacoma history, Tacoma’s […]

Bloomberg: California’s Fiscal Delusion, and America’s

December 17, 2012

(Original Post) By Josh Barro Nov 2, 2012 4:34 PM ET   I spent most of the last week in Los Angeles. And when I discussed Bloomberg View’s recent editorial on California — the one that argues Californians should relax their property tax limits instead of raising taxes again on high incomes — with the locals, […]

MSNBC: Doing the Math- How Much Prop. 30 Costs You

December 17, 2012

By SAM BROCK NBCBayArea.com updated 11/9/2012 9:18:16 AM ET California legislators are breathing a little easier now that voters surprisingly, and through a solid majority, approved the governor’s tax hike, Prop. 30. The new law will raise billions of dollars a year for most of the next decade to stem the state’s budget shortfall and […]

The Badger Herald: Obama must start prioritizing poverty

December 17, 2012

By Aaron LoudenslagerTuesday, November 13, 2012 1:00 a.m.Updated Tuesday, November 13, 2012 1:12:40 a.m. President Barack Obama was re-elected with a resounding victory over former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass., in which he earned a total of 332 Electoral College votes. This victory demonstrates the American people have rejected the laissez-faire economic policies Romney advocated for […]

The Hays Daily News: Childhood poverty

December 17, 2012

Published on -11/25/2012, 9:37 AM Kansas First Lady Mary Brownback has accepted a difficult responsibility. As unofficial adviser to a task force studying ways to reduce childhood poverty in the state, she might be required eventually to deliver bad news to her husband. It all depends on how seriously the governor-appointed panel accepts its task. […]

Orange County Register: Why state tax increases are reasonable

December 17, 2012

(Original Post) Published: Nov. 26, 2012 Updated: 6:18 p.m. By HAO-NHIEN VU / Journalist, blogger and math teacher Proposition 30’s passage is not just about education, but it heralds in a new age of more thoughtfulness on taxes. California voters show they do not have a knee-jerk reaction that all taxes are bad, and are […]

The Street: AT&T, Verizon Face Tax Windfall Lapsing

December 17, 2012

(Original Post) NEW YORK (TheStreet) — As telecom giants AT&T (T_) and Verizon (VZ_) finish multi-billion dollar network upgrades in the fight for new Apple (AAPL_) iPhone and Google (GOOG_)-Android subscribers, they’ve quietly seen a giant income tax windfall. Now, Craig Moffet of Bernstein Research, the telecom sector’s most consistently bearish analyst, says the tax […]

Washington Post: The teetotalers’ solution to the austerity crisis

December 17, 2012

(Original Post) Posted by Dylan Matthews on December 3, 2012 at 1:49 pm It’s basically a given at this point that any austerity crisis deal will involve new sources of revenue, be it in the form of higher rates for top earners, pared back tax expenditures, or a new tax altogether. Speculation around the third […]

The Atlantic: Will We Finally See an Increase to State and Federal Gas Taxes?

December 17, 2012

(Original Post) Eric Jaffe11:07 AM ET The idea of raising the gas tax, which pays for road and transit projects across the country, has been been a political poison at every level of government, across both parties, for many years now. The federal gas tax has been locked at 18.4 cents per gallon since 1993, […]

New York Times: Tax Arithmetic Shows Top Rate Is Just a Starter

December 17, 2012

(Original Post) By JACKIE CALMESPublished: December 8, 2012 WASHINGTON — Despite hints in recent days that President Obama and House Speaker John A. Boehner might compromise on the tax rate to be paid by top earners, a host of other knotty tax questions could still derail a deal to avert a fiscal crisis in January. […]

The Huffington Post: Business Roundtable Fiscal Cliff Proposal Bargains For Concessions On Corporate Rates

December 17, 2012

(Original Post) Ben Hallman Posted: 12/12/2012 7:26 pm EST After spending months opposing tax increases for the wealthiest Americans, the Business Roundtable, an influential corporate lobbying group, this week relented, accepting higher rates for the affluent in the name of averting the fiscal cliff. “We’re advocating for everybody to give a little,” said Jim McNerney, […]

Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan: A Widening Divide

December 17, 2012

(Original Post) By Nathan [email protected]: Saturday, December 1, 2012 12:58 AM CSTDoes it matter that income inequality is increasing in South Dakota? A report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and Economic Policy Institute found that, between the late 1990s to the mid-2000s, the drop in income among the bottom 20 percent of […]