March 27, 2018
Amazon also benefits at the state and local level when it comes to sales tax, according to a report released March 26 by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy based in Washington, D.C. In seven states—Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania—Amazon is either not collecting local taxes or charging a lower […]
March 26, 2018 • By ITEP Staff
This report concludes that lack of consistent sales tax collection is contributing to an unlevel playing field for local businesses “because millions of shoppers are able to pay less tax if they choose to buy from out-of-state companies over the Internet rather than at local stores.” It recommends that states explore reforms to bring their sales tax policies into the digital age.
March 22, 2018
Already throughout Pennsylvania, those making less than $20,000 are paying a much greater share in taxes (at 12 percent) than those making more than $426,000 (at just 4.2 percent), according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. City officials’ proposing to drive up property taxes as a way to finance new city largesse — […]
March 22, 2018
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) Feb. 12 told lawmakers that he would seek a cut to the state’s top marginal tax rate, which effectively jump started the task force’s search for revenue to pay for the cuts, estimated to cost $180 million in annual revenue, Boch said. Outside groups, including the Heritage Foundation’s Institute on […]
March 17, 2018
Along the same lines, Republicans claim that reductions in the corporate tax rate will lead to higher wages for workers. Evidence suggests this isn’t true, either. After Reagan signed a tax overhaul in 1986 that reduced the country’s corporate tax rate from 46 percent to 34 percent, wages fell for four years. Despite this data, […]
March 16, 2018
The upset that governors like Cuomo and others are voicing is understandable, says Meg Wiehe, deputy director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning research group. These states see they’re getting the short end of the stick from the federal law, and they suspect that Republican motives were at least partly political. […]
March 16, 2018
There was rare agreement across the political spectrum at the House Ways and Means Tax Policy subcommittee hearing this week, with policy experts from Heritage Foundation, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the Center for American Progress, Taxpayers for Common Sense and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget supporting the elimination of “tax […]
March 11, 2018
Roughly 80 percent of Massachusetts residents will see their tax bills shrink next year, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Read more
March 10, 2018
DACA-eligible immigrants pay $2 billion each year in state and local taxes, according to a report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. One study indicates that 97% of DACA recipients are in school or employed. Read more
March 6, 2018
Concerned about the effects of the Republican tax overhaul on their local economies, some state legislatures are considering revamping their own tax systems to address everything from lost tax deductions to growing income inequality. Here’s a rundown some of those efforts, based on an analysis by the liberal-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy: Read […]
March 1, 2018
https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2018/03/01/general-assembly-in-tax-cutting-state-of-mind.html?ana=bbg
March 1, 2018
Earlier this week, Matthew Gardner of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy reported that Amazon, which recorded $5.6 billion in profits in 2017, paid zero in federal taxes, thanks to “various tax credits and tax breaks for executive stock options.” That’s remarkable in isolation, but especially remarkable when you consider that Donald Trump’s corporate tax bill […]
February 28, 2018
Critics of the GOP tax overhaul say it rewards U.S. companies for moving jobs and profits offshore and may actually encourage outsourcing compared to the old rules. The liberal Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that the new international provisions will cost the Treasury an additional $14 billion in lost revenue over the next […]
February 28, 2018
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy’s finding that Amazon won’t pay any federal taxes for 2017 gets picked up back in Seattle. Read more
February 27, 2018
Matthew Gardner, senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, wrote about Amazon’s tax bill that won’t come due in a Feb. 13 blog post. Without being privy to the company’s tax return, no one can say exactly how CEO Jeff Bezos and Co. avoided what could have been more than $1.3 billion […]
February 23, 2018
Most are bonuses that amount to a small part of the total gains, leading sceptics to attribute the announcements to clever public relations. A few firms have gone further, announcing permanent wage increases or new investment projects. But these were probably in the pipeline anyway, given improving demand, says Matt Gardner, from the Institute on […]
February 22, 2018
“We know that when people get modest amounts of cash, they use it smartly, their kids stay in school longer, health outcomes improve, and they’re happier,” Hughes said on Reddit. “We have the power to rebalance our economic system and provide more opportunity to all — we just have to develop the political will to […]
Any politician can score points by railing against President Trump and his wildly unfair, loophole-ridden tax law. But if New York’s working people find out they will be subjected to a new and complicated set of state tax rules all to help the richest 5 percent, they’ll wonder why a better solution that targets corporations and high-income earners who just received a sizable federal tax break, was not found. In the wake of the Trump-GOP tax law, this is a missed opportunity for lawmakers in New York to increase taxes on those who just benefited from a substantial tax cut.
Two narratives that intentionally obscure who benefits from the tax law are emerging. One focuses on the personal income tax cuts that will result in an increase in net take-home pay for many employees once their employers adjust withholding. Anecdotes abound of working people getting a $100 or more increase, after taxes, per paycheck, but the reality is that most workers will receive a lot less than that. Meanwhile, the wealthiest 1 percent of households will receive an average annual tax break of $55,000, an amount that nearly eclipses the nation’s median household income.
February 20, 2018
A big part of the ups and downs in the above chart has to do with ups and downs in the price of gas, and this volatility is one reason why gas taxes generally aren’t levied as a percentage of the price. Many states switched to percentage taxes during the oil crises of the 1970s and early […]
February 20, 2018
The new fees and taxes are often part of broader regulatory measures as states and localities scramble to update tax codes and laws that have not kept up with the proliferation of app-based ride services. For instance, a Georgia state tax applies to rides in taxis but not ride-hailing cars even though they essentially do […]
February 20, 2018
European countries may fight back against U.S. President Donald Trump’s tax overhaul by arguing that it breaches World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, finance ministers said Tuesday. Their tough rhetoric came after the ministers gathered in Brussels to discuss a response to the U.S. reform, which many Europeans say unfairly favors American trade interests over their […]
February 18, 2018
Carl Davis, the research director at the Washington-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, has written extensively about ETCs as tax shelters. Nationwide, about $1 billion in potential tax dollars is diverted each year into these scholarship organizations, according to a 2016 ITEP report by Davis. What kinds of tax credits states allow under ETC […]
February 16, 2018
Half of unauthorized workers even file tax returns, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Many believe it will help them qualify some day for amnesty and legal residency, which is how DACA worked for the Dreamers. Even with 8 million unauthorized workers already here, more than half of American employers say they […]
February 15, 2018
It is difficult to quantify how much the average taxpayer would be affected under current law. A middle income family in Georgia — making between $40,000 and $62,000 annually — could see its federal tax burden decrease by about $600 annually, according to an analysis from the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy in […]