Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP)

ITEP's Research Priorities

Washington Post: With Sinema’s Help, Private Equity Firms Win Relief from Proposed Tax Hikes

August 11, 2022

Senate Democrats agreed Sunday to protect firms owned by the private equity industry from a new minimum tax on billion-dollar corporations, bowing to pressure from Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who insisted on making the change to the Democrats’ sprawling climate, health-care and tax package. Read more.

Time: Some of America’s Largest Corporations Pay Zero Taxes. Here’s How Congressional Democrats Aim to Change That

August 11, 2022

Progressive Democrats have been grousing for what seems like eons about the fact that some of the nation’s wealthiest corporations avoid paying their fair share in taxes. This weekend, the Senate inched a step closer to a fix when it approved a historic $370 billion climate and healthcare spending package that would be paid for almost […]

Los Angeles Times: Tax Provisions May Be Democrats’ Most Unexpected Victory in the Inflation Bill

August 11, 2022

The budget reconciliation bill just passed by the Senate and heading for final congressional approval offers dramatic improvements in American policies aimed at fighting global warming and improving healthcare. Read more.

Washington Post: The Corporate Minimum Tax Could Hit These Ultra-Profitable Companies

August 11, 2022

The House is expected to approve the Inflation Reduction Act on Friday that includes a minimum tax rate of 15 percent on highly profitable companies — a levy that could hit Amazon, Verizon and others. The tax would help pay for large investments across climate and health care. Read more.

U.S. News: What the Inflation Reduction Act Means for You

August 11, 2022

The Inflation Reduction Act requires certain large corporations to pay a minimum income tax of 15% and a 1% tax on stock buybacks. The bill also allocates an additional $80 billion in funding to the Internal Revenue Service for enforcement efforts like conducting audits and uncovering instances of tax fraud. Read more.

TheStreet.com: Amazon’s Biggest Rival Isn’t Walmart, It’s Congress

June 2, 2022

Over that period the company paid $1.9 billion in U.S. corporate income taxes, according to a 2021 analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Those payments gave Amazon an effective tax rate of just 4.3%, about a fifth of the 21% statutory U.S. corporate income tax rate. Read more

Wall Street Journal: States Help Business Owners Save Billions in Federal Taxes

June 2, 2022

“That’s logical from any individual state’s perspective, but in the big national scheme of things, it’s hard to see how this is a good thing,” said Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a progressive group. Read more

Bloomberg: Some States Are Offering Sales Tax Holidays for Shoppers in 2022

June 2, 2022

Last year, sales tax holidays cost states and local governments more than $550 million in lost revenue—that’s according to an Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) survey of cost estimates from state tax expenditure reports, fiscal notes, revenue departments, and academic studies. Those numbers are up from an estimated $300 million in 2020. Read […]

The New York Times: State Lawmakers, Step Up and Govern

May 17, 2022

Below is an excerpt of a letter to the editor by Aidan Davis: The overarching theme that ties most of them together is that they are a default reaction among leaders who lack an ambitious, positive vision for the role of government. Read more

The Hill: Biden, Bezos Feud Escalates

May 17, 2022

Between 2014 and 2018, Bezos reported $4.22 billion income and paid $973 million in taxes. In that period, the Amazon founder and then-CEO’s wealth grew by $99 billion, according to the report. “I think he doesn’t want the public talking about the fact that wealthy people should pay taxes on their earnings, just like middle-class […]

MarketWatch: Jeff Bezos accuses Biden of ‘misdirection’ over inflation causes and solutions

May 16, 2022

A report earlier this year said Amazon avoided paying about $5.2 billion in corporate income taxes in 2021 as it reported record profits. The report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that Amazon paid about $2.1 billion in federal taxes, an effective tax rate of about 6%. Read more

CNN: Fact-checking the Biden vs. Rick Scott argument over Scott’s tax proposal

May 10, 2022

Another analysis, from the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy think tank, tested a different hypothetical policy that would satisfy Scott’s proposal to have all Americans pay some income tax. Under that policy, the institute found that the poorest fifth of Americans would face an average tax hike of just over $1,000. Read more

Washington Post: Corporate America takes first battle over future of Trump tax cuts

May 10, 2022

“That’s a fair trade,” said Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness, a left-leaning group that has along with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy voiced opposition to the incentive being restored. “It’s a deal, whereas this is not a deal.” Read more

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 […]