Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

ITEP's Research Priorities

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 […]

Marketwatch: Trump’s 2017 tax bill was reportedly $750 — here’s how that stacks up against the average American’s taxes

September 29, 2020

That’s according to an analysis from Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the left-leaning Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy. (Wamhoff looked at income tax liabilities by adjusted gross income and divided the returns by the total liabilities to get the estimated tax bills. Read more

Bloomberg: Trump’s reported $750 federal income tax bill is smaller than the average payment by an American household making $20,000 a year

September 29, 2020

The data — drawn from the IRS — shows Trump’s tax payment is less compared to households earning between $20,000 and $25,000 each year. Around 9 million people filed tax returns in that group, said Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, a progressive think tank. Read more

Bloomberg: Profitable Losses, or How Trump Trimmed His Taxes: QuickTake

September 29, 2020

An article by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy on tax breaks for real-estate investors like Trump. Read more

Business Insider: I made $10,500 as a freelancer in 2018 — and still paid more taxes than Trump. The system is broken.

September 29, 2020

According to a 2019 report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, 60 companies, including Netflix, Chevron, and Eli Lilly, did not pay federal income taxes in 2018. “Instead of paying $US16.4 billion in taxes, as the new 21% corporate tax rate requires, these companies enjoyed a net corporate tax rebate of $US4.3 billion, […]

TRT World: Trump’s tax returns reveal a system that rewards all of America’s elite

September 29, 2020

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy analysed SEC filings of Fortune 500 companies and identified 60 major corporations that didn’t report any federal income tax expenses in 2019. Read more

Scoop: ‘The American People Should Be Pissed Off’: Critics Say Trump Tax Dodging Exposes System Rotten to the Core

September 29, 2020

Steve Wamhoff, federal policy director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, noted in a statement that the Times reporting does “not include Trump’s tax returns for 2018 and 2019, the first two years after the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act went into effect. The law opened new tax avoidance opportunities for wealthy […]

Washington Post: A pug, a cat and a baby have paid more in taxes than Trump reportedly has

September 29, 2020

Undocumented immigrants paid more than $11 billion in taxes in 2017, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. That same year, Trump paid just $750, according to the New York Times story. Read more

CBS News: 7 takeaways from New York Times report on President Trump’s tax returns

September 29, 2020

At the same time Ivanka Trump was an executive officer of the Trump companies, she both profited from the hotels and the consulting fees, the Times story noted. The IRS in the past has pursued penalties against some companies that have sought to avoid taxes by paying consulting fees to people who weren’t, in fact, […]

Associated Press: Trump Went Even Further Than Other Uber-rich to Shrink Taxes

September 29, 2020

So say tax experts in the wake of a New York Times report Sunday that found that Trump paid only $750 in taxes in both 2016 and 2017 — and none at all in 11 of the 18 years that the newspaper examined. “The things that Trump did are typical of wealthy businesspeople and particularly […]

CBS News: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slams Trump for paying less in taxes than “waitresses and undocumented immigrants”

September 29, 2020

Former Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro joined Ocasio-Cortez’s criticism, citing a figure from the the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy that found undocumented immigrants pay nearly $12 billion in federal and state taxes a year. Read more

Orlando Sentinel: Trump’s tax strategy: Unfair or just good business?

September 29, 2020

Many large companies, including Amazon, General Motors and IBM, paid no taxes in 2018, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Something is wrong with the tax code, not the IRS. They can only collect what is owed under the law, so everyone with smarts is hiding under that law. Wake up, Congress, […]

Common Dreams: The American people should be angry’: Critics say Trump tax dodging exposes a system rotten to the core

September 29, 2020

Steve Wamhoff, federal policy director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, noted in a statement that the Times reporting does “not include Trump’s tax returns for 2018 and 2019, the first two years after the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act went into effect. The law opened new tax avoidance opportunities for wealthy […]

Washington Post: What Trump’s and Biden’s competing economic agendas reveal about the economy

September 28, 2020

Inequality also interacts with money and politics to block the very types of productive, equalizing spending that Biden proposes, while insisting on the nonproductive tax cuts that partially drive the Moody’s results. Consider, for example, that one of Trump’s few campaign proposals is to cut the tax on capital gains. According to the Institute on […]