Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

ITEP's Research Priorities

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“Budget for America’s Future” Cuts Funding for Essentials

February 10, 2020 • By Amy Hanauer

The budget proposal reinforces the Trump Administration’s commitment to maintaining trillions in tax cuts for the rich and corporations, even if it requires cutting support for food assistance, cutting funding support for education, harming our environment or taking away health care from millions of Americans.

Maine Beacon: Report: Maine losing $52 million annually to corporations using offshore tax havens

February 10, 2020

The amount of money U.S. companies move through tax havens is considerable.  Fortune 500 companies made $2.6 trillion in offshore profits in 2016, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Read more

Politifact: Fact-checking the Democratic claim that Amazon doesn’t pay taxes

February 7, 2020

Short answer: Amazon’s tax returns are private, so we don’t know for sure what Amazon pays in federal taxes. But Amazon’s estimates on its annual 10-K filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission are the closest information we have on this matter. They show mixed results for the past three years: no federal income […]

CBSNews.com: Amazon paid a tax rate of just 1.2% last year, versus 14% for average Americans

February 7, 2020

Amazon isn’t alone, of course. Hundreds of U.S. companies now pay tax rates that are lower than those many Americans pay. A study late last year from the liberal Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that Fortune 500 companies pay an average tax rate of 11.3%. Read more

Yahoo! Finance: Amazon paid a 1.2% tax rate on $13,285,000,000 in profit for 2019

February 7, 2020

Matthew Gardner, senior fellow for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), who analyzes corporations and their tax avoidance, says there’s “no meaningful” connection between Amazon and many of the taxes it listed in its announcement. Instead, the company lists taxes it collects on behalf of the U.S. government, like payroll taxes and sales […]

The Sun: AMAZON’S DIME Amazon paid just ONE per cent tax after making $13BILLION profit leaving taxpayers with jus $162million

February 7, 2020

One expert found ‘no meaningful’ link between Amazon and the tax payments in the SEC filing. Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, wrote: “Economists agree that payroll taxes are ultimately paid by employees in the form of reduced compensation. “Like the sales tax, the payroll tax is one […]

Fox Business: Amazon paid tax rate of 1.2% on $13B in profits last year

February 7, 2020

“This means that instead of avoiding 100 percent of its income tax liability, Amazon appears to have avoided only 94 percent of its tax bill last year,” Matthew Gardner, senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, wrote in a blog post. Read more

The Daily Mail: Amazon paid only $162M in US federal taxes in 2019 after making $13BILLION in profit – an effective rate of just one per cent

February 7, 2020

Taxes collected on behalf of the government for payroll and from online sales from third-party vendors don’t count as taxes paid. The expert wrote in a post made for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy that ‘economists agree that payroll taxes are ultimately paid by employees in the form of reduced compensation.’ ‘Like the sales […]

Politico: Cloudy Forecast for Tax Law Fixes

February 6, 2020

DECOUPLING DEDUCTIONS: Two-thirds of states with property tax deductions set a $10,000 ceiling along the lines of the TCJA’s cap on federal deductions for state and local taxes, according to a new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning group that considers such deductions regressive. Many states tightly link their tax […]

International Business Times: Amazon Only Paid 1.2% Taxes In 2019 Despite $13 Billion Profit

February 6, 2020

Yahoo Finance, however, pointed that with the exception of the federal income tax, the listed amounts aren’t actually taxes Amazon paid to the federal government. There’s “no meaningful” connection between Amazon and many of the taxes it listed in its announcement, said Matthew Gardner, senior fellow for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) that […]

CNBC: Amazon had to pay federal income taxes for the first time since 2016 — here’s how much

February 4, 2020

However, paying something like payroll tax is hardly something to boast about, according to Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, or ITEP, a nonpartisan and nonprofit tax policy think tank. In a blog post responding to Amazon’s release of its 2019 tax bill, Gardner notes that “economists agree […]

The Verge: Amazon finally owes federal income taxes this year — but we still don’t know how much it’s paying

February 4, 2020

t’s still, however, a low number compared to Amazon’s total profits. “It’s not fair to say [Amazon] paid nothing” on federal taxes anymore, says Matthew Gardner of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, whose reports have spurred coverage of Amazon’s taxes. “Clearly they’re not paying nothing. They’re paying very little.” Gardner takes issue with […]

Bond Buyer: IRS SALT regulation allows loophole for pass-through businesses

February 3, 2020

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Morning Call: Air Products collects $17 million tax rebate, one of many Fortune 500 companies that paid no corporate taxes

February 3, 2020

Air Products joined PPL, which during approximately the same period had a $19 million federal tax cut, according to the nonprofit Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Fortune 500 company PPL not only paid no federal taxes last year, it got a $19 million rebate; it says it has invested those savings » The institute […]

Law 360: Blame Deficit on Disastrous Tax Law

January 31, 2020

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Seattle Times: Amazon touts 2019 federal taxes, but the picture is complicated

January 31, 2020

So was Amazon’s 2019 U.S. federal income tax bill $1 billion or $162 million? The discrepancy stems from different financial statements companies prepare for tax authorities and investors, which recognize revenues and expenses at different times. Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and a longtime watcher of corporate […]

Gizmodo: Amazon’s Tax Claims Are Riddled with BS

January 31, 2020

According to Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, these numbers are, at best, misleading. “You look at the different types of taxes that they’re collecting here—and they don’t say ‘pay’, they say ‘collect’—and there’s a reason for that. The biggest number on this list is the sales and […]

USA Today: State taxes: Which are the most tax-friendly states for the wealthy?

January 29, 2020

Wealthier Americans tend to pay a smaller share of their income in state and local taxes than lower-income Americans. According to a 2018 report released by The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a Washington D.C.-based think tank, the highest-earning 1% of American families pay just 7.4% of their income in state and local taxes […]

Scroll.in: At the centre of the US government and Facebook’s tax dispute is the company’s Dublin office

January 27, 2020

If the IRS prevails in court, it could cost Facebook up to $9 billion more in taxes, based on estimates in the company’s securities filings. It would be a notable defeat for a company that, when it comes to risky tax avoidance, has been more aggressive “than almost any other US corporation,” said Matt Gardner, […]

Washington Post: Va. Governor Proposes Gas Tax Increase

January 27, 2020

Virginia would join 31 states that have raised or reformed their gas tax in the last decade, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Read more

The Washington Spectator: Tax Policy Options for the Next Administration

January 26, 2020

Bernie Sanders has proposed taxing estates worth more than $3.5 million. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that this would raise more than $30 billion a year. Another reform would generate a good deal more revenue—ending the so-called “step-up” provision of capital gains. When heirs receive an asset, they don’t owe taxes on […]

Business Insider: Treasury Secretary Mnuchin keeps insisting Trump’s tax cuts will pay for themselves despite consistent evidence they exploded the federal deficit

January 25, 2020

It’s soaring because the government is collecting fewer tax dollars as a result of the cuts. One study from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think-tank, released in December suggested corporate taxes are at a 40-year low. Read more

New York Times: As States Add Money to Fix Roads, U.S. Is Urged to Ante Up

January 25, 2020

According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, most states have raised their gasoline taxes over the last several years. Along with the ballot initiatives passed to support highway projects, states could take a bigger role in their own infrastructure destinies. Ironically, more state-level control and funding is one of the tent poles of […]

Politico: The Power of Semantics

January 24, 2020

States’ use of tax incentives to lure the filming of movies and television shows is one of those policy ideas that experts of basically all political persuasions are against — believing that the costs in revenue far outweighs the economic benefits generally trumpeted by politicians and Hollywood. (One example: “The competition among states on this […]

ProPublica: Who’s Afraid of the IRS? Not Facebook

January 23, 2020

If the IRS prevails in court, it could cost Facebook up to $9 billion more in taxes, based on estimates in the company’s securities filings. It would be a notable defeat for a company that, when it comes to risky tax avoidance, has been more aggressive “than almost any other U.S. corporation,” said Matt Gardner, […]