Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

ITEP's Research Priorities

Forbes: The Tax Credit That Could Produce Rare Agreement On Pandemic Relief

October 27, 2020

The TCJA changes moved the needle for approximately 550,000 children living in poverty by lifting them above the poverty line, according to a 2019 report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), but changes to the credit could improve the situation for more children. Read more

Yahoo! Finance: Ex-Trump adviser Gary Cohn would back Biden’s proposed 28% corporate tax rate

October 27, 2020

The Trump administration’s tax overhaul has come under criticism given persistent loopholes that allow corporations to drive the effective rate well below the statutory level. In 2018, the work arounds helped a group of 378 consistently profitable Fortune 500 companies to pay an average federal rate of 11.3% on their 2018 income, according to a […]

Rolling Stone: How Trump Took the Middle Class to the Cleaners

October 26, 2020

The Christmas present Trump promised the middle class turned out to be a trinket. The tax cut’s benefits to middle-wage earners worked out to about $65 a month, according to numbers crunched by the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. As passed, the income tax cuts will begin to phase out in 2025, and […]

In These Times: Billionaires Are Fighting the Fair Tax Because They Don’t Want to Pay up

October 26, 2020

The Insti­tute on Tax­a­tion and Eco­nom­ic Pol­i­cy recent­ly released a study look­ing at how Illi­nois’ cur­rent flat tax struc­ture amounts to a mas­sive racial­ized wealth trans­fer from the poor­est work­ers to the ultra-rich. They found that if the grad­u­at­ed rates pro­posed in the Fair Tax had been in place for the last 20 years, the wealth­i­est 3% would […]

DailyKos: All Those Wild Trump Economic Promises Were Just More Ruinous Trickle Down

October 26, 2020

The Christmas present Trump promised the middle class turned out to be a trinket. The tax cut’s benefits to middle-wage earners worked out to about $65 a month, according to numbers crunched by the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. As passed, the income tax cuts will begin to phase out in 2025, and by […]

City Watch: Biden Tax Plan Would Make America More Equal

October 24, 2020

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy  has crunched the numbers: In 2022, under Biden’s plan, the nation’s top 1 percent would bear 97 percent of the direct tax increases Biden is proposing. The next most affluent 4 percent would bear the remaining 3 percent. Read more

The American Independent: Trump swears he’s bringing jobs back to the US. He’s done the opposite

October 23, 2020

Additionally, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy notes, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which slashed taxes for the superwealthy and benefited large businesses, included a loophole offering a 0% tax rate on a large proportion of profits generated by U.S. corporations overseas, creating added incentives for them to relocate their operations to […]

New York Times: Fact Checking Trump and Biden Town Halls

October 16, 2020

Data compiled by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a liberal research organization in Washington, show that 91 profitable Fortune 500 companies did not pay taxes on the income earned in the United States in 2018. That included companies that reduced their tax liability through deductions for investment, a key aim of the tax […]

MSNBC:Trump is eyeing another corporate tax cut

October 16, 2020

And as Biden noted, many corporations aren’t even paying taxes at the current rate. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy released a detailed study in 2018 that found of the Fortune 500 companies, about 400 paid an average tax rate of about 11% — roughly half of the current rate of 21% — thanks […]

Center for Public Integrity: The Heist

October 15, 2020

“It’s pretty clear that the PPP process was run in a way that pushed needy small businesses to the back of the line while prioritizing the influential,” said Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the non-profit, left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “That’s not at all the way it was built, certainly not at […]

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A Conservative Supermajority on the Supreme Court Could Be a Boon to Wealthy Tax Cheats

October 14, 2020 • By Carl Davis

A Conservative Supermajority on the Supreme Court Could Be a Boon to Wealthy Tax Cheats

By early next year, the Supreme Court could be operating under a 6-3 conservative supermajority that may unwind hard-fought progressive reforms across every area imaginable. While reproductive rights and health care are at the forefront of public discourse, the Court’s impact will extend far beyond these two areas. Voting rights, the battle against climate change, anti-discrimination laws, the separation of church and state and yes, even progressive taxation, are all at risk.

WGLT: What To Know About Illinois’ Graduated Tax Amendment

October 14, 2020

Proponents of the amendment, including Pritzker, cite a breakdown which shows the bottom 20 percent of Illinois earners pay 14.4 percent of their total income to state and local taxes, while the top 1 percent of earners pay 7.4 percent of their income in taxes. That’s according to a report by the left-leaning Washington D.C.-based […]

Washington Times: Spending plans by Biden, Trump would hike federal debt by $5 trillion over 10 years

October 13, 2020

Under his plan, 97% of the tax increases would fall on the top 1% of earners, according to new projections from the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “Only 1.9% of taxpayers will see their income taxes or payroll taxes rise under Biden’s plan, and they will certainly not be the Americans who face […]

Progressive.org: ‘Sheer Cruelty, Racism, and Disregard’

October 12, 2020

Trump’s badmouthing of undocumented immigrants ignores the $11.7 billion that they contribute annually in state and local taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. It also creates an enforcement climate that puts them at constant risk of deportation. Read more

Yahoo! Finance: A Breakdown of Biden’s Tax Proposals

October 9, 2020

Matt Gardner, Senior Fellow at The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy joins Yahoo Finance’s Kristin Myers for a break down of Joe Biden’s tax proposals. Watch the video

Boston.com: Mike Pence incorrectly claimed Joe Biden’s plan would raise taxes on ‘every’ American. Here’s what it would actually do

October 9, 2020

Pence was correct that Biden twice said during the first presidential debate he was “going to eliminate the Trump tax cuts.” According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, on average those cuts resulted in an extra $780 in their first year for middle-income earners (or those making 43,500 to $69,800 a year), though […]

Money: VP Debate: Where Kamala Harris Stands on Taxes, Health Care and Stimulus Checks

October 7, 2020

“The CARES Act gave Americans an important one-time payment, but it’s clear that wasn’t nearly enough to meet the needs of this historic crisis,” Harris said in a statement. But critics say the law would cost too much. A month of payments under the bill would dole out nearly $600 billion to households — more […]

Washington Post: How the Cares Act gave millions to energy companies with no strings attached

October 7, 2020

“The Cares Act tax provisions were too heavily tilted towards large businesses and away from at-risk individuals,” said Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), a Washington-based nonprofit organization. Read more

FAIR: Steve Wamhoff on Trump’s Taxes

October 3, 2020

We’ll talk about takeaways from Trump’s taxes with Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Listen

Forbes: The $750 Question: How Trump’s Taxes Reveal The Deep Unfairness Of The U.S. Tax Code

October 3, 2020

“There are certainly some tax advantages available to larger corporations that are practically unavailable to individuals. Most large businesses have full-time staff available to help negotiate the tax laws,” said Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) and a corporate tax expert who regularly studies Fortune 500 […]

Chicago Sun-Times: Illinois needs the Fair Tax for racial equity

October 2, 2020

An analysis by the non-partisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows that, between 1999 and 2019, the state’s current flat rate income tax dramatically increased the racial wealth gap, transferring billions of dollars in tax liability from wealthy, mostly white taxpayers to African American and Latino families. The details reveal a stunning portrait of […]

In These Times: It’s Cheap to Be Rich

October 2, 2020

As the Insti­tute on Tax­a­tion and Eco­nom­ic Pol­i­cy explained: ​“The mech­a­nisms Ama­zon has used to reduce its three-year fed­er­al income tax rate to zero between 2017 and 2019 are legal. Con­gress cre­at­ed them, Con­gress chose in the most recent round of ​‘tax reform’ to leave them in place, and Con­gress cur­rent­ly appears to be entire­ly […]

Jacobin Magazine: Abraham Lincoln Taxed the Rich. This Election Day, Illinois Can, Too.

October 2, 2020

Illinois now boasts one of the most unfair tax systems in the country. According to a new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the state’s flat tax “amounts to a tax subsidy for the wealthiest Illinoisans that compounds income inequality and racial wealth gaps.” Read more

Newsweek: What VP Candidate Kamala Harris Has Said About a Second Stimulus Check

October 1, 2020

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy conducted an analysis of the plan, finding that its 10-month price tag could be at least $5.6 trillion—more than twice the amount of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act signed by President Donald Trump in March. The CARES Act provided the first round of stimulus checks […]

WGN NewsNation: President Trump calls income tax report ‘fake news,’ says he’s still under IRS audit

September 29, 2020

Matt Gardner is with the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy in Washington. He spoke with NewsNation’s Dean Reynolds about the New York Times report. “This isn’t news that the president has avoided taxes,” Gardner said. “What’s new and really interesting to me about the latest report is that for the first time we have […]