Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

The American Prospect: The 2018 Economy in 12 Graphs

December 21, 2018

Thanks to some bold number crunching by the nerds at the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, the figure compares a regressive, supply-side tax cut, like the one we got last year, to a highly progressive expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, the GAIN Act, proposed by Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and California Representative […]

CNBC: Democrats Are Going to Attack the GOP Tax Law from Several Angles, Including SALT Caps and Breaks for Corporations

December 18, 2018

Many of the changes that Democrats are seeking have little chance of enactment amid divided government in Washington. But Alan Essig, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said Democrats are looking beyond the next two years. “While it may be difficult for the next Congress and President Trump to agree on […]

Washington Post: In Early Win for Party’s Left, House Democrats Back off Tax Rule

December 11, 2018

Henry Connelly, a spokesman for Pelosi, said the rule was unnecessary to prevent Democrats from hiking taxes on the middle class. He also noted that House Republicans waived their rule to pass their tax law in 2017, because the legislation did raise taxes on some families. “Unlike the House GOP, at the end of the […]

Morgan Stanley Report Confirms Tax Cut Promises Made Are Promises Unkept

Almost a year after lawmakers hastily enacted the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, evidence continues to mount that it is providing far more tax cuts than jobs. A new Morgan Stanley report estimates that U.S. companies repatriated between $50 billion and $100 billion of offshore cash in the third quarter of 2018. This means companies […]

2017 Tax Law Leaves More Wealthy Heirs with Tax-Free Inheritances

Media contact A tiny fraction of estates will be subject to the tax in 2018 The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act drastically reduced the number of estates that are subject to the estate tax, which is an incredible feat given only a fraction of 1 percent of estates owed any tax in recent years, the […]

Washington Post: Does the Republican Tax Law Encourage Outsourcing?

December 6, 2018

“These multinational firms are going to want to stay below the 10 percent threshold, because that means the U.S. tax system won’t touch their foreign earnings,” said Matt Gardner, a tax expert at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank. “If you move a whole factory overseas, that sharply increases what […]

Arkansas Times: Race, History and Taxes

December 6, 2018

According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the poorest 20 percent of Arkansas taxpayers, those making less than $18,600, pay 11.3 cents in state and local taxes on every dollar they earn, compared to 6.9 cents on every dollar being paid by the top one percent of taxpayers making more than $442,000. Read […]

Think Progress: Trump Didn’t Know GOP Tax Bill Incentivizes Businesses to Offshore Jobs

November 30, 2018

Those findings echoed previous analysis from non-partisan agencies like like the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which found the Republican Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would make offshore tax dodging even worse than it was before.  The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities similarly found that the plan is “likely to lead to more outsourcing of U.S. […]

Fortune: It’s Too Easy for the Ultra-Rich to Pass Down Wealth. Here’s How to Fix That

November 26, 2018

The first is to tax extreme wealth directly—specifically, with a 1% tax on the assets of the wealthiest 0.1% of households, those with assets greater than $20 million. Such a wealth tax would raise nearly $1.9 trillion over the next 10 years, according to forthcoming research from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy that […]

New York Daily News: Cyber Monday Shopping Deals Blunting by Supreme Court Ruling

November 26, 2018

“This is about improved enforcement of a tax that’s already on the books,” echoed Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, to CNBC. “For years, shoppers have been able to evade these taxes by shopping with certain online retailers.” Read more

NorthJersey.com: Democrats Taking Another Run at SALT Restoration

November 24, 2018

While it remains to be seen whether bipartisan support for a full or partial SALT restoration is feasible or even affordable in the new Congress, the fight – or at least the conversation – is one well worth having. Indeed, homeowners, particularly in the northern part of New Jersey, are going to be hit hard […]

Newark Star-Ledger: Your Property Tax Break Might Come Back if These Newly Elected Democrats Have Their Way

November 20, 2018

Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., a member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said he would introduce legislation in the new Congress to raise the $88 billion in revenue that the progressive Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy said it would cost to fully restore the state and local tax break. Read more

New York Times: Did a Tax Increase Tucked Into Trump’s Tax Cut Come Back to Bite Republicans?

November 19, 2018

Simply reinstating the unlimited cap, without also reversing the changes to the alternative minimum tax, would deliver no benefit to low-income and middle-class Americans, according to a new analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a liberal think tank. More than 85 percent of the benefits would go to the top 5 percent […]

Daily Beast: Dear Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats: Why Are You Embracing Trickle-Down Economics?

November 19, 2018

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy has found that from 2000 to 2018, the richest 20 percent of Americans have enjoyed 65 percent of all the tax cuts, with the remaining 35 percent of tax cuts were divided between the other 80 percent. The lesson from this finding is not that we should make […]

Splinter: House Democrats Balk at Prospect of Being Good

November 17, 2018

That is a disastrous idea. Alan Essig, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, noted the rule “could make it difficult, as a practical matter, to raise taxes—on the rich—without making the tax code a complicated mess. This is because few changes in the federal income tax would affect no one in […]

Lexington Herald Leader: Kentucky’s New Tax Favors for the Wealthy Won’t Spur the Economy. They Will Worsen Inequality.

November 16, 2018

Income inequality is soaring in an economy where the winners increasingly take all. The wealthiest one percent of Kentuckians make 94 times more a year on average than the bottom 20 percent. Despite that yawning gap, the state tax system is tilted in favor of those at the very top, as shown in a new […]

Slate: House Democrats Are Already Pursuing a Dumb Tax Stunt, and the Left Is Very Annoyed

November 16, 2018

But then, tucked at the bottom of page five, there’s an item that’s already setting off alarm bells across the left. The rule—endorsed by Pelosi and Richard Neal, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee—would “require a three-fifths supermajority to raise individual income taxes on the lowest-earning 80 percent of taxpayers.” The […]

Washington Post: Democrats Face Early Division in Rules over Taxes

November 16, 2018

The richest fifth of taxpayers are those who make more than $108,000 annually, said Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Some liberal Democrats said that if the party limits its own ability to raise taxes, it could make it harder for the House to adopt policies […]

Wyo File: Why Are We Footing the Bill for Billionaires?

November 16, 2018

he question, then, will be: Who pays? That question — “Who pays?” — is also at the center of a report released last month by the Washington, D.C.-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The report, Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States, looks at the different tax rates […]

Bloomberg: U.S. Companies Flee No-Tax Caribbean Havens after EU Crackdown

November 16, 2018

Facebook Inc. has said it plans to almost triple its workforce in Singapore. The social media giant only reports Irish and Singapore subsidiaries, according to a 2017 study by the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Read more

House Democrats Falter with Proposed Rule to Restrict Tax Hikes

Democratic leaders have proposed rules to be adopted in the next Congress, and many of them, such as eliminating the requirement for “dynamic scoring,” are very sensible. But one of the proposed rules is problematic because it would make it harder to raise revenue.

CBS News: Can New York Make Back Its Amazon Investment

November 14, 2018

Opponents of corporate subsidies said Amazon’s choices prove taxpayer incentives matter much less than advertised. “[A]ccess to an educated workforce and high-quality public amenities are what drive business location decisions — not the presence of low or regressive taxes,” the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy said in a statement. “These cross-state bidding wars are […]

Real News Network: Even for Local Taxes, the Rich Pay Far Less Than the Poor

November 14, 2018

  Dylan Grundman, an ITEP senior policy analyst, discusses Who Pays.

Yahoo! Finance: How Trump’s Tax Cuts Hurt the GOP in America’s Wealthy Suburbs

November 12, 2018

Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, told Yahoo Finance that the same story has been playing out across the country. “I think Californians and New Yorkers are right to feel that they didn’t get an especially good deal out of that tax overhaul,” Davis said. “Their tax cuts, relative […]

Washington Post: In blow to liberal efforts, voters across the country reject tax increases. (California is the exception.)

November 7, 2018

North Carolina voters, for instance, approved a change to their state constitution bringing down the maximum allowable tax rate from 10 percent to 7 percent. That will effectively only spare the rich from higher taxes, because no tax increases in that neighborhood are on the table for the middle class, but the average voter may […]