Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

ITEP's Research Priorities

ABC: Fact Checking Night Two of the First Democratic Debate

June 28, 2019

More recently, in February, an analysis of Amazon corporate filings by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that the company got a rebate of $129 million for tax year 2018. Analysts say Amazon was able to whittle down its tax liability by taking advantage of tax credits and deductions. Read more

Vox: Buttigieg and Biden Acknowledged an Important Truth about Undocumented Workers

June 28, 2019

That’s not true. Contrary to this persistent myth, undocumented immigrants do in fact pay taxes. Millions of undocumented immigrants file tax returns each year, and they are paying taxes for many benefits they can’t even use. The best estimates come from research by the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning Washington, DC, think […]

Washington Post: Democratic presidential candidates engage in ‘arms race to the left’ in first debate

June 27, 2019

On taxes, many of the candidates also emphasized their more left-leaning ideas to raise rates on corporations and make the tax system more progressive, while none touted plans to keep taxes low for businesses, noted Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Wamhoff noted that Delaney did […]

Axios: Correcting Halliburton’s Taxes

June 27, 2019

Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, emailed this morning to say that I was reading the below section of the 10-K backward. Rather than paying $19 million in taxes, Halliburton declared it was owed a $19 million refund. Gardner explains: “‘Current Federal [taxes] looks at first glance like […]

Washington Post: Amazon Was the Only Tech Company Called Out

June 27, 2019

Income inequality has emerged as one of the top issues for Democrats in 2020, and few examples illustrate the uneven playing field in the U.S. more aptly than profitable companies avoiding paying corporate taxes. Amazon emerged as the symbol of that issue after the company received a federal tax rebate of $129 million on income […]

New House Bill Sponsored by Rep. Tlaib

June 27, 2019

Tlaib said in recent weeks that she was working on a bill that was like the EITC “on steroids.” The liberal Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy called the measure, dubbed the BOOST Act and which offers a $3,000 credit to single filers and $6,000 to married couples, the “most expansive to date” in that […]

The Hill: Tlaib Rolls Out Bill to Create Tax Credit for Low- and Middle-Class People

June 26, 2019

The House Ways and Means Committee passed a Democratic bill last week to provide expansions of the earned income tax credit, the child tax credit and the child and dependent care tax credit for two years. The left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimated that Tlaib’s credit would provide most of its benefits to […]

The Hill: Dems Talk up Tax Credits to Counter Trump Tax Law

June 24, 2019

The left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) released a report last month finding that the bulk of the benefits for many of Democrats’ tax-credit proposals would go to those in the bottom 60 percent of income, and that very little of the benefits would go to those in the top 20 percent of […]

Fox Business: Ocasio-Cortez Criticizes Amazon’s Bezos for Paying Workers’ Starvation Wages’

June 16, 2019

Concerns were also triggered by the tax breaks and subsidies Amazon – one of the world’s most valuable companies by market cap – would be given for building its second headquarters in New York. Last year, Amazon did not pay a single dollar in federal income taxes despite nearly doubling its profit from 2017 ($5.6 […]

International Business Times: Amazon News: What Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders Said About The Retail Giant On Taxes And Its New Credit Card

June 15, 2019

On Thursday, Biden posted on Twitter how Amazon pays a “lower tax rate than teachers and firefighters.” The New York Times in April noted how Amazon paid no taxes in 2018, citing a study from the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The study showed the company actually paid a -1.2% in taxes due to a $129 million tax rebate. The […]

The Hill: You Should Care About the Dream Act

June 15, 2019

These beliefs are simply untrue. Dreamers, DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipients, and undocumented immigrants pay taxes including sales tax and local real estate tax. Many pay Medicare, state and federal taxes, and even Social Security tax (though undocumented immigrants are not eligible for Social Security benefits). In fact, undocumented immigrants working in the […]

Wall Street Journal: Does Amazon Really Pay No Taxes?

June 14, 2019

“I’ll cheerfully acknowledge that [the current provision] is not what we want to really know, but it’s also the closest thing we’re ever going to see,” said Matt Gardner, senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the left-leaning group whose report on Amazon and other companies drew Democrats’ attention. Read more

The Hill: Biden Criticizes Amazon for Paying $0 in Corporate Taxes

June 14, 2019

A report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy earlier this year found that 60 Fortune 500 companies, including Amazon, avoided paying any federal income taxes in 2018. Amazon, which had $11.2 billion in profits last year, has become a prime target for Democrats seeking to criticize corporate power, potentially anticompetitive practices and dangerous working conditions.Read more

Newsweek: We Need to Reward Work

June 14, 2019

An April report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that 60 companies on the Fortune 500 did not pay any income tax on $79 billion last year and actually earned rebate totaling $4.3 billion. Amazon, which earned $11 billion in income and received a $129 million rebate from the government, was the […]

Geekwire:Amazon fires back at Joe Biden on Twitter over corporate taxes: ‘We pay every penny we owe’

June 14, 2019

A report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy revealed that 60 companies on the Fortune 500 did not pay income tax and instead earned corporate tax rebates of $4.3 billion. Biden is not the first presidential candidate to take aim at Amazon on Twitter. Sen. Elizabeth Warren did the same in April, accusing […]

CNBC: Joe Biden’s Twitter fight with Amazon perfectly sums up the battle over America’s new tax code

June 14, 2019

Biden’s tweet linked to a New York Times story that cited data from the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy on companies that earned billions of dollars last year but paid no federal taxes. The analysis showed that Amazon topped the list, with pretax profits of nearly $11 billion. In fact, the group found […]

KEYE TV: Colorado made $1B in marijuana tax revenue: What could this mean for federal legalization?

June 13, 2019

Tax experts explained that government revenue from cannabis is not a panacea for solving the country’s budget issues, but it could certainly help. According to a study by Carl Davis, the research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a federal push to legalize marijuana and regulate commercial sales could potentially generate nearly […]

Fox Business:Joe Biden slams Amazon for not paying federal taxes: You ‘should pay a few taxes’

June 12, 2019

By leveraging unspecified tax credits and stock-based compensation deductions, the company didn’t pay the 21 percent U.S. corporate tax. Instead, as first reported by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, Amazon received a federal income tax rebate of $129 million, essentially amounting to a tax rate of negative 1 percent. Read more

CNBC: Feds block tax breaks for donating to these charitable state funds

June 12, 2019

These programs range from conservation easements to private school tuition scholarships. “The private school organizations were asking for full-scale carveouts for themselves; they wanted to be exempt if the program was designed to benefit private entities instead of public ones,” said Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Read more

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Treasury Regulations Address Long-Standing Tax Loophole

June 11, 2019 • By Carl Davis

Following is a statement by Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, regarding Department of Treasury regulations released today to address state policies that allow taxpayers to receive overly generous tax credits for charitable deductions. “This regulation rightly addresses a long-standing tax loophole that gave high-income taxpayers one more way […]

Bloomberg: When an Eight-Figure IPO Windfall Can Mean a Zero-Digit Tax Bill

June 10, 2019

It’s supposed to help young companies attract capital. The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation says the provision costs the U.S. Treasury $1.3 billion a year. “There is no evidence that these sorts of breaks do anything to help the economy in the long run,” says Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the left-leaning […]

Commonwealth Magazine: Progressive Taxation, Let’s Do It Right

June 10, 2019

In spite of Article 44’s boundaries, the Commonwealth has effectively mitigated the flat tax for people at the lower end of the income scale by using exemptions and tax credits. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the bottom twenty percent of filers in Massachusetts pay virtually no state income tax. The next twenty percent […]

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Congress Steers Away from Entrenching So-Called Free File Program

June 6, 2019 • By Steve Wamhoff

Just before tax day in April, ITEP’s Jessica Schieder wrote that two proposals before Congress would take taxpayers in opposite directions. One was a bill passed in the House on a voice vote that included, among many other provisions, a section making permanent the “Free File” program under which private tax preparers claim to offer […]

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Tax Credit Wins and Continued Debates in the States

June 5, 2019 • By Aidan Davis

Income inequality continues to be an undercurrent in public discourse about our economy and how working families are faring. It drove the national debate over the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which, mounds of data reveal has exacerbated the problem. Some elected federal officials have responded to this step backward with calls for higher […]

FoxBusiness: U.S. Companies Paid $91 Billion Less in Taxes

June 4, 2019

Plus, in 2018, 60 of America’s biggest companies paid $0 in federal taxes Opens a New Window. , despite earning billions of dollars in profits. That includes Amazon, Netflix, General Motors, Chevron, JetBlue, IBM and U.S. Steel, which all used a diverse array of loopholes and tax breaks, according to a report from the INstitute […]