Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

ITEP's Research Priorities

The Center Square: States That Legalized Marijuana Are Bringing in More Tax Revenue on Marijuana Sales than Alcoho

May 10, 2022

A majority of the states that legalized recreational marijuana for recreational use are collecting more tax revenue from pot sales than alcohol sales. The first two states to legalize pot are profiting the most, Colorado and Washington. Across the country, the total revenue for taxes on weed amounted to nearly $3 billion, according to a report on […]

Politico: Checking for research opposition

May 9, 2022

The progressive Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy followed up with a post shortly thereafter, calling it an “incredible reversal” that Democrats would consider a net corporate tax cut in the competitiveness measure after pushing so far unsuccessfully for a broader measure to hike taxes on the rich and corporations. Read more

Salon: Taking the Amazon union battle to the C-suite

May 7, 2022

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy recently reported that Amazon “avoided” about $5.2 billion in corporate federal income taxes in 2021 while reporting record profits of more than $35 billion (75% higher than its 2020 record haul) and “paid just 6 percent of those profits in federal corporate income taxes.” According to the nonprofit, […]

The Hill: Pot taxes surpass those from alcohol in legalization states

April 27, 2022

The report, from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, found the 11 states where marijuana is legal pulled in just shy of $3 billion in excise taxes on pot in 2021, compared with about $2.5 billion they made on alcohol excise taxes or liquor store profits. “This is still a small part of state […]

Bloomberg: Musk’s Untaxed Wealth Opens a Path to Twitter, Riling Democrats

April 27, 2022

“If you look at Musk’s ‘income’ as defined by our tax code, you see that the guy is really rich, but not rich enough to buy Twitter,” Steve Wamhoff, the director of federal tax policy at the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said. “When you look at a more complete definition of his […]

Yahoo! Finance: Pot Taxes Giving Some States a Revenue High

April 25, 2022

Taxes on the sale of marijuana are now producing more revenue than taxes on alcohol in the 11 states that legalized commerce in the drug, according to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Marijuana taxes in those states grew by a third to nearly $3 billion in 2021, ITEP found, while […]

Forbes: Will Working From Home Cripple City Budgets?

April 24, 2022

As if COVID-19 hasn’t been hard enough on cities, a new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) raises another worry—lost tax revenues from a weak office sector. Linking data on offices with employment information (especially on working from home), ITEP worries many cities will face declining revenues. Read more

McClatchy: A Republican senator has a plan to ‘Rescue America.’ Here’s what it could cost Californians

April 19, 2022

But it’s the lowest wage earners who would pay more taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center reached the same conclusion. The ITEP’s estimate of the impact on Californians: ▪ Lowest 20% of income earners, making $26,100 or less, a tax increase of $790. ▪ Second 20%, […]

MarketPlace: Millions of college students are eligible for tax credits. But they have to file for them

April 15, 2022

“They’re sensibly designed to make college more attainable, to make it so that students don’t have to live in poverty just to pay for their college expenses,” said Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Read more

CNBC: How companies like Amazon, Nike and FedEx avoid paying federal taxes

April 14, 2022

The current United States tax code allows some of the biggest company names in the country to not pay any federal corporate income tax. In fact, at least 55 of the largest corporations in America paid no federal corporate income taxes on their 2020 profits, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The […]

CSPAN Washington Journal: Biden Tax Proposals

April 12, 2022

ITEP Senior Fellow Matthew Gardner appeared on CSpan’s Washington Journal on Tuesday, April 12, 2022, to discuss President Biden’s tax proposals.  

Quartz: What’s in store for empty downtown office buildings?

April 12, 2022

Even as business districts start to recover, Gallup estimates that 37% of current office space in the US is likely to be abandoned as workers switch to remote work. That could slash cities’ tax revenue and economic activity. A study of eight cities from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that lost tax […]

Wall Street Journal: Raise Residential Taxes? Bring in Casinos? Cities Look at Ways to Bolster Budgets

April 11, 2022

“Though magnitudes vary somewhat across cities, all face significant fiscal risks,” the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a Washington, D.C., think tank, said in a November report that looked at the impact of remote working on property tax collections in eight cities.The report projected that prices for commercial real estate on average will fall […]

Wall Street Journal: Cities Look at Ways to Bolster Budgets

April 11, 2022

“Though magnitudes vary somewhat across cities, all face significant fiscal risks,” the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a Washington, D.C., think tank, said in a November report that looked at the impact of remote working on property tax collections in eight cities.The report projected that prices for commercial real estate on average will fall […]

Washington Post: Want to really fix Virginia’s standard deduction? Index it.

April 6, 2022

On that topic, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy wrote: Any feature of an income tax that is based on a fixed dollar amount will be vulnerable to inflationary effects. In many states, this means that tax breaks designed to provide low-income tax relief — including exemptions, standard deductions, and most tax credits — […]

Fox News: Rep. Ro Khanna concerned student loan debt could be a hurdle to raising children, buying homes

April 6, 2022

“How is it that some corporations are paying zero percent tax?” Khanna said. “We can make sure that people who are very, very wealthy are paying at least 20%. That is what teachers and firefighters pay.” At least 55 corporations didn’t pay any federal income tax in 2020, according to a study conducted by the […]

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Punitive Fines and Fees Are an Invisible Cost of State Tax Cuts 

April 4, 2022 • By Jenice Robinson

The deck is stacked against those who have the least, and ongoing racism makes it even more difficult for people of color to avoid punitive systems that are intentionally structured to extract what, for poor people, can be usurious penalties. The nation collectively shrugs about such injustices because they are either invisible or we chalk up entanglements in any legal morass to personal behavior. But the truth is that, indirectly, we are all part of the fines-and-fees matrix that entraps poor people in debt or keeps them tethered to the criminal justice system. None of us should look away. 

The Nation: Biden’s Billionaire Tax Is Smart Politics for the Midterms

March 31, 2022

Right now, über-billionaire Elon Musk enjoys a tax rate of 3.27 percent, while Amazon’s Jeff Bezos pays 0.98 percent, according to a 2021 ProPublicareport. Getting them to pay 20 percent would be an epic accomplishment, which is what makes the president’s initiative a big deal. Indeed, as Amy Hanauer of the Institute on Taxation and […]

Bloomberg: Did You Pay Your ‘Fair Share’ of Federal Income Tax This Year?

March 31, 2022

And according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the impact would have a definite geographic tilt. The states where more than 40% of residents would face tax increases are largely in the South, including Mississippi, West Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Georgia, New Mexico, South Carolina, and Florida. read more

WVTF Radio: A gas tax holiday may not lead to savings for Virginia drivers

March 30, 2022

About a third of the savings will go to the oil industry, according to research into how this worked when Indiana and Illinois had a gas tax holiday. But that doesn’t mean Virginians will see the rest of the savings. Carl Davis at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy says a quarter of the […]

Associated Press: How Would a Billionaire Tax Work?

March 29, 2022

Steve Wamhoff, director of tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, says the Democrats “have got this reconciliation vehicle that they can use that to pass legislation.” “This is a step toward a much fairer tax code.” Read more

MarketWatch: Can Biden turn his ‘billionaire minimum income tax’ into law?

March 29, 2022

The minimum tax payments would count as a “prepayment,” credited against future capital-gains taxes, the Treasury Department said. That way, when the asset was finally sold off, it would not be taxed twice, it noted. Such a system would be a “huge” step towards a fairer tax code, said Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax […]

Fortune: President Biden says his ‘Billionaire Minimum Income Tax’ would raise $360 billion. How does it work?

March 29, 2022

The highest likelihood is through “reconciliation” — a budget process for passing fiscal legislation with a simple majority of Senate votes. That will require buy-in from West Virginia Sen. Joe Machin and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who have each objected to proposals to tax the ultra-wealthy in the past. Steve Wamhoff, director of tax policy […]

New York Times: What Retirement Means for Your Taxes

March 28, 2022

Many states exempt retirement income, although the specifics vary widely. Eight states have no personal income tax, but among those that do, about three-quarters fully exempt Social Security benefits from taxation, and most others have partial exemptions for lower-income retirees, according to research by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonpartisan nonprofit group. […]

CBS News: These states may soon slash their residents’ income taxes

March 15, 2022

Georgia’s House recently approved a bill that would create a flat state income tax with a 5.25% rate, raise the amount of income exempt from taxation and eliminate many deductions. Georgia’s top income tax rate is now 5.75%, which applies to income over $7,000 earned by a single person or income over $10,000 earned by […]