Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

ITEP's Research Priorities

Politico Morning Tax: The Related Note

May 26, 2020

It’s not the first time Biden has called out Amazon on taxes, nor was it the first time the company fired back. “We pay every cent owed,” Amazon tweeted. “Assume your complaint is w/ the tax code, not Amazon.” The liberal Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy regularly details how much or, generally, how little […]

Tampa Bay Times: They Pay Taxes, But There’s No Stimulus Money for Them

May 24, 2020

In Florida, passing the HEROES Act and extending the CARES Act retroactively would help an additional 277,240 people — those living in households where at least one member uses a taxpayer identification number, according to the Institute On Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonpartisan tax policy organization in Washington, D.C. Read more

Courier Post: NJ should provide COVID-19 aid to undocumented immigrants who pay income tax

May 22, 2020

About 475,000 immigrants without legal status live in New Jersey, according to 2018 figures by the Pew Research Center. Workers who do not have legal status pay more than $11.7 billion in state and local taxes, according to a 2017 study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a non-profit think tank. Read more

Orlando Sentinel: Is Wall Street Journal right? Is Florida “well-managed?” It depends

May 22, 2020

New York’s tax burdens are relatively even. The effective rate for New York’s poorest is 11.4 percent, compared to 11.3 for the top one percent and 12.4 for the middle. The comparisons are by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which last updated them in 2018. So it’s obvious why the Journal resents New […]

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What Biden Means By No Tax Increases on Anyone “Making Under $400,000”

May 22, 2020 • By Steve Wamhoff

Presidential candidate Joe Biden said on Friday that under his proposals, no one with income below $400,000 would pay higher taxes than they do now. Does this make sense? It is true that Congress and the next president have many options to raise trillions of dollars from people who have incomes even higher than that. […]

Bloomberg:Energy Companies Reap Tax Breaks As They Brace For Virus Impact

May 21, 2020

But what makes oil and gas companies especially poised to take advantage of this provision is the cyclical nature of the commodity they produce and transport. “It’s not at all surprising to me that liberalizing the use of operating loss carrybacks would disproportionately affect oil and gas,” said Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the […]

Orange County Register: Tax hike on vaping is the wrong priority at the wrong time

May 21, 2020

Compounding all of these problems is that the vaping tax hike would have the largest impact on those who can least afford it. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) notes in its “Guide to Fair State and Local Taxes” that excise taxes like this “fall more heavily on middle- and low-income families than […]

Los Angeles Times:Stop discriminating financially against taxpayers without Social Security numbers

May 20, 2020

All told, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimated that 4.3 million adults and 3.5 million children were disqualified from the stimulus program. Read more

Orlando Sentinel: Make corporations – not teachers – pay up

May 19, 2020

In fact, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that Florida families that make less than $50,000 spend 8-12% of their annual income on local and state taxes while families that make $200,000 or more spend between 2% and 4.5%. Read more

Bloomberg: California Setting Rules for Finding Pot’s Napa Valley

May 19, 2020

The state also has a vested interest in protecting pot’s reputation. California cannabis, both recreational and medicinal, generated $395.4 million in taxes in 2018 and $629.2 million in 2019, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy said. California cannabis sales accounted for one-third of the $1.9 billion in tax revenue raised nationwide last year, according […]

Yahoo! Finance: Coronavirus stimulus checks: Here’s what a second round could look like

May 18, 2020

The new bill will provide payments worth nearly $600 billion, with the average payout of more than $3,000 to families in all but the highest income levels, according to The Institute On Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). Similar to the first stimulus payments, single adults with income up to $75,000 will get the full $1,200 […]

Politifact:House coronavirus bill would aid immigrants, relatives cut out of previous aid package

May 18, 2020

The left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, using IRS data, estimated that this provision would benefit more than 4.3 million adults and 3.5 million children in households of ITIN filers or of mixed immigration status, paying them a total $16.4 billion ($7 billion under the CARES Act and $9.4 billion under the HEROES Act). […]

Michigan Live:If second round of stimulus payments is approved, how much could you get?

May 18, 2020

Additionally, the bill as currently written would make those people retroactively eligible to receive the initial stimulus payment under the CARES Act. The Institute On Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that ITIN filers would receive over $9.4 billion in direct economic relief. Other than that, the HEROES Act has the same eligibility requirements as the previous […]

Forbes: 4.3 Million Adults Eligible For Two $1,200 Stimulus Checks If HEROES Act Passes

May 15, 2020

The Institute On Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) estimates that over 4.3 million adults, as well as 3.5 million children, would benefit from this change in eligibility. The organization calculated that ITIN filers would receive over $9.4 billion in direct economic relief from the new economic impact payments. Moreover, the retroactive clause would mean disbursement […]

Politico Morning Tax:STATESIDE JOCKEYING CONTINUES

May 15, 2020

One key element of the latest legislation would provide $1,200 in direct stimulus payments to individuals including those with Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers, building on an initial round of payments that was more restrictive. It would also retroactively expand those first payments to ITIN holders, which would permit the benefit for more than 4.3 million […]

Yahoo!: How the coronavirus outbreak may help keep Amazon’s federal tax bill low (again)

May 15, 2020

“I’d say their tax rate will be a lot closer to zero than to 21%,” said Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, referencing the current U.S. corporate tax rate. To be sure, it remains too early to predict Amazon’s pretax income for the full year, and therefore whether […]

Madison.com: Why many rich people keep a Faustian bargain with the GOP

May 15, 2020

The Faustian bargain embraced by well-off conservatives is all about greed. Trump lied that his 2017 tax law was to help ordinary people. The top 1 percent of income earners got a tax break of $48,000 a year, while the bottom 20 percent got $120, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a […]

Business Insider: A Tax Break Tucked in the CARES Act Will Save Some Companies Tens of Millions

May 9, 2020

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Center for Public Integrity: COVID-19 Didn’t Affect This Company, But It Still Got a $893K Federal Loan

May 8, 2020

“There doesn’t appear to be any mechanism whatsoever to ensure that these loans were available only to companies that were actually affected by the coronavirus and the associated economic shutdown,” said Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a think tank in Washington, D.C. “It’s hard to see how […]

Quartz:Congress is facing fury over CARES Act tax breaks for the rich

May 8, 2020

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy explained in Aprilthat the new rules will allow companies to “game the system.” They can amend their past taxes, applying current losses to offset income earned in years before 2018 when tax rates were more favorable to them. “Of course, this sort of timing shift is utterly unavailable […]

Los Angeles Times: Trump’s Payroll Tax Cut Demand Is Absurd

May 5, 2020

Specifically, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonprofit think tank that tracks how taxes and tax breaks are distributed along the income spectrum, 65% of the benefit would go to the top 20% of earners — those making $118,700 or more a year. Fully 25% of the benefit would go to […]

New Yorker: How Greenwich Republicans Learned to Love Trump

May 4, 2020

On average, Trump gave households in the top one per cent a forty-eight-thousand-dollar tax cut, while those in the bottom twenty per cent received a hundred and twenty dollars, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonpartisan think tank. Jim Campbell, the Republican organizer who embraced Trump early in 2016, told me […]

Forbes: President Trump Says Next Stimulus Package Must Have Payroll Tax Cut

May 4, 2020

Who would this benefit? The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy did an analysis in mid-March that showed a complete elimination of the payroll tax would most benefit the top 20% of income earners. 65% of the benefits would go to the richest 20% of taxpayers – in part because many high earners are also […]

Alternet:Government leaders including Betsy DeVos push their personal agendas as economic tsunami crashes into America’s schools

May 4, 2020

“For states facing catastrophic revenue declines, asking more of taxpayers with a clear ability to pay is far preferable to cutting state budgets, which would lead to mass layoffs, steep cuts in public services, and a downward spiral in the economy,” write fiscal policy analysts in a report for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. They […]

Boston Globe: Why exclude some Americans from the coronavirus stimulus?

May 4, 2020

According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, between 50 and 75 percent of the estimated 8 million undocumented workers in the country pay annual federal income taxes using an ITIN. Unauthorized workers are more likely to work in low-wage but essential jobs in the pandemic such as janitors, food delivery drivers and shoppers, […]