Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy
The No Tax Breaks for Outsourcing Act Is Needed More than Ever

The new corporate minimum tax enacted as part of last year’s Inflation Reduction Act will address some of the worst corporate tax dodging, but what else is needed? A group of Democrats have answered this question with the No Tax Breaks for Outsourcing Act.

Yahoo Finance: Stock Buybacks Have Surged in the Weeks Since Washington Began Taxing Them

February 13, 2023

A new excise tax on stock buybacks went into effect Jan. 1 and has been followed by what seems to be an unexpected development: corporate share repurchase announcements have exploded. Read more.

Oklahoma Policy Institute: The Needs of Everyday Oklahomans Outweigh Tax Cuts that Benefit the Wealthy

February 13, 2023

As Oklahoma’s 2023 legislative session begins, the perennial push for tax cuts that would shrink state revenue will likely return. In 2022, leaders of the Oklahoma House of Representatives championed tax cuts – primarily focusing on reducing the personal income tax, the corporate income tax, and the sales tax on groceries. Ultimately, the legislative session ended without any major […]

Michael Ettlinger

February 12, 2023 • By ITEP Staff

Michael Ettlinger

Michael is a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. He is also a senior fellow with the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire, where he was the founding director, and an independent author. This is Michael’s second tour at ITEP. He was previously the State Tax […]

CBS News: States are Flush with Cash. It’s Setting Off ‘Tax Cut Fever.’

February 11, 2023

Even as the U.S. economy shows signs of slowing down, many states around the U.S. are flush with cash, with their so-called rainy day funds estimated to reach a record high of $136.8 billion this fiscal year. And lawmakers in more than half of states are responding to their new cash cushions with similar proposals: cutting taxes. […]

Why the States Have a Major Role to Play If We Want Tax Justice

With fears of gridlock in a divided Washington, tax justice champions are building momentum in other places where there's dire need for better tax policy: the states. We can upgrade communities across the country by making 2023 a year to win tax improvements in statehouses.

FiveThirtyEight: Congress’s U-Turn Has States Thinking About Giving Parents Cash

February 9, 2023

Last year, Congress walked away from what looked like one of the most effective fixes for child poverty in a generation. Now, state legislators are trying to walk it back. Lawmakers in at least 10 states are considering some new version of the expanded child tax credit, a federal program that lifted millions of children out of poverty but […]

State of the Union Likely to Continue Progress on Tax Justice

After decades of Presidents who ran away from taxes, it’s a sea change to have a chief executive who understands that the rich should pay their fair share, extremely profitable corporations should pay their fair share, and the public sector should have revenue to invest in problems – like climate change and healthcare – that will only be solved with pathbreaking public action.

Wall Street Journal: Top GOP Tax Legislator Says He’ll Boost Workers, Probe Companies

February 7, 2023

Rep. Jason Smith (R., Mo.), the House’s new top tax writer, is promoting an approach he says would favor working-class Americans over large corporations, a shift in tone from his predecessors that raises questions about companies’ ability to push tax cuts through Congress. Read more.

The White House: Fact Sheet: The Biden Economic Plan Is Working

February 6, 2023

President Biden has long believed that we must build the economy from the bottom up and middle out, not the top down. …  In 2020, 55 of the largest corporations that were profitable paid $0 in federal income tax. To end that unfairness in the tax code, President Biden signed into law a 15 percent minimum tax […]

States Newsroom: States Take Heat for Spending Federal Relief Funds on Tax Cuts, Prisons

February 2, 2023

As states plan how they’ll spend the $25 billion remaining in federal COVID relief funds, some also are facing criticism and renewed scrutiny over how they allocated money already received from the American Rescue Plan Act. Read more.

Hawaiʻi Budget & Policy Center: Closing the Capital Gains Loophole

February 1, 2023

Eliminating the preferential tax treatment of capital gains income will increase tax fairness and help fund our future. Read more.

New Jersey Policy Perspective: How an Expanded Child Tax Credit Would Help More Hard-Working New Jersey Families

January 31, 2023

Doubling the maximum credit amount would help hundreds of thousands of children and their families pay for basic needs. Read more.

Kansas Reflector: Analysis Show Kansas Chamber’s Flat Tax Proposal Costs $1.5B, Favors Top 20% of Wage Earners

January 30, 2023

Assessments by the Kansas budget director and an independent tax policy institute Monday showed the flat tax proposal by the Kansas Chamber would reduce the state budget by $1.5 billion per year and primarily benefit the state’s most affluent wage earners. Read more.

January 30, 2023 • By Carl Davis

The Geographic Distribution of Extreme Wealth in the U.S. Excessive concentration of wealth runs counter to our national aspiration for genuine equality of opportunity, and it saps the vitality of our democracy through the consolidation of power and influence. Tax policy offers a powerful means of beginning to address our nation’s stark level of inequality, […]

Center for Public Integrity: How Will a Divided Government Affect Taxes?

January 27, 2023

House Republicans want tax changes that experts say would increase inequality and aren’t likely to pass the Senate. In a gridlocked federal landscape, states may hold the key. Read more.

Idaho Statesman: A Warning About Cutting Taxes in States Like Idaho That are Flush with Cash

January 27, 2023

During his State of the State address this year, Idaho Gov. Brad Little quoted Lt. Gov. Scott Bedke’s piece of ranch family wisdom. “It won’t be the bad years that put you out of business; it’s what you did in the good years that sets you up for failure or success.” Flush with cash, too […]

The American Prospect: Reanimating the Taxman

January 26, 2023

At its core, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the federal government’s revenue collector and benefits administrator. Yet with Congress inclined to run virtually every function of the government through the tax code in some form, the agency is equivalent to the central processing unit of every electronic device on the planet. Read more.

Wisconsin Examiner: Tax Analyst Says Flat-Rate System Will Benefit Wealthy at the Expense of the Majority

January 26, 2023

The wealthiest Wisconsin residents already pay a smaller share of their incomes in state taxes than the rest of the population, and replacing the state’s current graduated-rate income tax structure with a flat tax would increase that disparity, a national tax expert says. Read more.

Newsweek: The GOP’s 30 Percent Sales Tax Plan Is Tearing the Republican Party Apart

January 26, 2023

Republicans in the House of Representatives appear divided over a proposed national sales tax that would replace income taxes, with Democrats using the issue to attack the GOP. Read more.

Kentucky Center for Economic Policy: Reducing the Income Tax Will Weaken the Commonwealth

January 25, 2023

House Bill 1 in the 2022 Kentucky General Assembly is the next step in a legislative effort to phase down and even eliminate Kentucky’s income tax. This policy path is quite likely the most dangerous ever considered in the modern history of the commonwealth. It marches toward elimination of the source of 41% of state […]

Yahoo Money: The Fair Tax Act Aims to Abolish the IRS and Set a National Sales Tax. Here’s How It Would Work

January 25, 2023

Imagine this: Instead of paying federal taxes to the IRS, you pay them to your local cafe every time you buy a latte or to your supermarket when you make a grocery run — or to countless other businesses when you make purchases. Read more.

Yahoo News: Flat Income Taxes: Who Are the Biggest Winners and Losers?

January 25, 2023

From Kansas to Wisconsin to Nebraska, the conversation surrounding a flat tax has picked up as of late, with more state legislators pushing for as much. Read more.

Open Sky Policy Institute: Major Tax and Education Plans Would Quickly Drain Flush State Coffers

January 23, 2023

The cost of high-profile K-12 finance and tax packages introduced this week would entirely consume the projected $1.9 billion that lawmakers have to enact new legislation in the current two-year budget cycle and then some. Read more.

KUOW Seattle: WA Democrats Join Nationwide Rollout of ‘Wealth Tax’ Proposals

January 20, 2023

Washington state Democrats Sen. Noel Frame and Rep. My-Linh Thai announced legislation Thursday to create a state wealth tax on financial assets in excess of $250 million. They say it could generate an estimated $3 billion per year to fund housing and education, and decrease the tax burden on working-class people. Read more.