Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

ITEP's Research Priorities

Politico: Taxing the Pot

July 24, 2019

So how might this actually be a tax cut? By removing marijuana from the controlled substance list, Harris and Nadler would also make legitimate businesses eligible to deduct routine business expenses — something the industry has been seeking for years. Carl Davis of the liberal Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy said it would be […]

Anchorage Daily News: As Alaska’s Budget Uproar Rolls on, a Top Dunleavy Adviser Has Seen It Before

July 24, 2019

Arduin, Laffer & Moore has been criticized by economists for what some see as less than rigorous methods. One Oklahoma study on eliminating the state’s personal income tax produced by the firm was trashed as not “meeting professional standards” and including “biased and greatly exaggerated estimates” by University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University economists. […]

KCBS: Kamala Harris’ Pot Proposal Would Reduce Tax Revenue, Expert Predicts

July 23, 2019

Harris’ proposal would impose a 5% federal tax on pot to pay for new social justice program. Her legislation would also extend significant income tax deductions that have been unavailable to business people in the cannabis industry, because of federal prohibitions on the drug. “There’s actually a really big income tax cut in here,” said Carl […]

New York Times: State and Local Taxes Are Worsening Inequality

July 21, 2019

Low-income households in Illinois pay about 14 cents in state and local taxes from every dollar of income, while the state’s most affluent households pay about 7 cents per dollar. That gap between the poor and the wealthy in Illinois is one of the largest in any state, but the poor pay taxes at higher […]

Washington Post: Trump Aides to Look for Big Spending Cuts in Second Term

July 20, 2019

… with 2018, with 60 Fortune 500 companies paying no federal taxes at all, according to a 2018 study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Read more

New York Times: Back-to-School Sales Tax ‘Holidays’ Lure Shoppers Despite Slim Savings

July 19, 2019

But the tax holidays put a damper on state revenue and don’t necessarily deliver the business results they promise, said Dylan Grundman, a senior policy analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “People shift purchases, but don’t increase their overall spending,” Mr. Grundman said. “So the boost to business doesn’t really materialize.” Read […]

Concord Monitor: Why won’t Sununu fight tax avoidance by multinational firms?

July 19, 2019

The estimated revenue loss to New Hampshire was $177 million in 2018, according to a Jan. 17 review by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The name of the review is “A Simple Fix for a $17 Billion Loophole.” In particular, the tax code favors foreign-based multinational corporations operating in New Hampshire. This favoritism […]

Tampa Bay Times: Billions in Profits and No Income Tax Bill? That’s not Fair

July 19, 2019

Amazon made $10.8 billion last year and did not pay a penny in corporate income tax. In fact, it claimed a federal income tax rebate of $129 million. It’s not alone. Sixty profitable Fortune 500 companies avoided all federal income taxes by taking advantage of lax provisions in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. […]

CNBC: Blue states file suit against IRS over rules on SALT workarounds

July 17, 2019

Whether the final rule will ultimately deter people from donating to these funds remains to be seen. “If you’re really passionate about private school vouchers in Georgia, you donate and you still get 100% of your donation back,” Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, told CNBC. “You just won’t […]

Chicago Booth Review: Why Some Companies Don’t Maximize Tax Avoidance

July 15, 2019

This conundrum may come as a surprise to those who noticed that Amazon, Netflix, General Motors, and at least 57 other Fortune 500 companies didn’t pay a cent in US income tax last year on a combined $79 billion of profits, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. But as Weisbach has put […]

The Hill: 2020 Democrats Push Tax Hike on Wealthy Investors

July 14, 2019

Former President Obama proposed raising capital gains rates for high earners to 28 percent, still short of the top ordinary income tax rate. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton proposed increasing capital gains rates for investments held in the medium term but proposed keeping the top long-term rate the same. And Democrats […]

CNN: Amazon’s Less-Than-Zero Tax Rate Is Unacceptable

June 28, 2019

So, what is Amazon’s tax rate? According to The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, it was at 11% from 2011 to 2016, which was apparently too much for owner Jeff Bezos’s tastes — Amazon’s 2018 income tax rate plummeted to -1%. That’s a minus sign in front of the 1, signaling a negative tax […]

Bankrate.com: Six Key Takeaways from the First Round of Debates

June 28, 2019

Big technology companies such as Amazon have been hit with criticism in recent months, including after the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) reported in February that the online retail giant paid nothing in federal taxes on its $11.2 billion in profits. In October 2018, CEO Jeff Bezos announced that the online retail giant […]

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