Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

ITEP's Research Priorities

CNBC: Trump’s Budget May Delay Future Tax Refunds

February 13, 2018

The president released his budget Monday for fiscal 2019, proposing $11.1 billion for the Internal Revenue Service, including $2.3 billion for tax filing and compliance applications and $110 million to modernize the agency’s computer systems. “The real question is whether the base level of funding will be sufficient for the IRS to do its job […]

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Two Months after Top-Heavy Tax Cuts, Trump Budget Proposes “Savings” by Making Cuts to Safety Net Programs

February 12, 2018 • By Alan Essig

Two Months after Top-Heavy Tax Cuts, Trump Budget Proposes “Savings” by Making Cuts to Safety Net Programs

“In case it was not apparent after the White House pushed for a tax plan that overwhelmingly benefits corporations and the rich, the White House budget proposal is clear on what and whom it prioritizes: wealth over work, corporate interest before the public good.”

Vice News: The Trump Tax Cut Isn’t Trickling Down to Workers

February 7, 2018

That all added up to a massive PR campaign on behalf of the cuts that elided all of the bill’s negative consequences, like the decision by Kleenex maker Kimberly-Clark to use its tax windfall to fund a plan that included laying off 5,000 workers. And it’s not clear that the cut directly led to the […]

Dallas Morning News: Look out N.Y., L.A. and Chicago: The New Tax Law Makes Dallas even stronger

February 2, 2018

Most of the individual and family savings from tax reform are going to high earners. In Texas, three-quarters of the upside will be claimed by taxpayers earning over $106,000, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a “nonprofit, nonpartisan” research firm in Washington. To offset those gains — and the hit on the […]

In These Times: Cities Scrambling to Attract Amazon Because It “Creates Jobs” Are Being Sold a Lie

January 31, 2018

Indeed, it’s far more likely that businesses make decisions on where to locate based on a talented workforce and top-quality infrastructure than their tax rate. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy reported in 2013 that state and local taxes are only about 1.8 percent of a company’s cost of doing business. You cannot possibly lower the […]

Bloomberg BNA: States in Pickle Over Deductions for Federal Taxes

January 31, 2018

Iowa lawmakers attempted in vain to repeal the deduction last year, and Alabama has considered repeal efforts as a way of offsetting the revenue loss that would occur if the state repeals its tax on groceries, according to a blog post by Dylan Grundman, senior policy analyst with the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic […]

Newark Star-Ledger: GOP lawmakers shouldn’t skew our numbers to defend Trump’s tax cuts

January 31, 2018

Below is an excerpt of an op-ed by ITEP deputy director Meg Wiehe. It’s well known that the GOP tax law approved in a rush at the end of last year provides a small tax cut for most working people and a bonanza for the wealthy. Attempting to make this historically unpopular bill more agreeable, […]

HuffPost: Companies Are On A Cheap Charm Offensive For Trump’s Tax Bill

January 30, 2018

Meanwhile, Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, announced it would spend an additional $700 million over the next two years on employee pay, thanks to the tax bill. That’s less than 5 percent of the company’s most recent annual profit. Walmart announced the closure of 63 Sam’s Club stores, which will result in hundreds of […]

Tulsa World: Legislative Action Preventing Federal Income Tax Change from Blowing a $375 Million Hole in State Budget

January 28, 2018

December’s federal income tax reform bill would have decreased Oklahoma’s state income tax revenue by $375 million had legislators not “decoupled” from the federal standard deduction last year, analysts say. “Had we not decoupled, the state would have been bringing in $375 million less this year,” said David Blatt of the Oklahoma Policy Institute, citing […]

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Federal Tax Law Will Have Mixed Effect on Taxpayers’ State Tax Bills and States’ Revenue

January 26, 2018 • By Meg Wiehe

Federal Tax Law Will Have Mixed Effect on Taxpayers’ State Tax Bills and States’ Revenue

Most states piggyback on federal law to some extent for their own taxes, especially personal and corporate income taxes. These states in particular must understand what the federal changes mean for their own tax codes and decide whether to remain “coupled” to changes in the tax bill, decouple from them or take other action in response.

Albany Times Union: Schumer Points to Layoffs to Counter GOP’s Rosy Tax-Law Forecast

January 25, 2018

In Schumer’s estimation, those with plenty of cash on hand will spend less of their tax windfall on bonuses and wages than on shareholder dividends and stock buybacks — which ultimately show up in corporate hierarchy bonuses. Among the major announcers of buybacks: MasterCard, Bank of America, Pfizer and Wells Fargo. With so much cash […]

CBS News: Trump’s Economic Score: After Tax Cuts, Not too Much

January 23, 2018

The tax plan aims to pump $1.5 trillion worth of breaks into the nation’s economy over the next 10 years. Although the bulk of the benefits go to companies and the wealthy, ordinary folks will get something, too. The average tax reduction for the middle fifth of American taxpayers by income will be $800 in […]

Washington Examiner: New Tax Law Means Tax Hikes in Iowa Unless State Intervenes

January 23, 2018

he timing is auspicious because, for years, some conservatives in the state have resisted the idea of eliminating the deduction out of a fear that doing so would be a tax increase. But such worries don’t apply now, because the federal tax cuts are lowering the deduction’s value to the tune of $130 million to […]

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: In Assessing the Fairness of Tax Cuts, Don’t Forget Income Inequality

January 20, 2018

The basic problem, the Post said, was McCaskill’s use of the phrase “in the long run.” Next year, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the vast majority of Missourians will see a tax cut. The middle 20 percent of households will see an average cut of $830, which is why Republicans can […]

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Olympics-like Bidding for Amazon’s HQ2 Is a PR Stunt Meant to Extract Tax Subsidies

January 19, 2018 • By Guest Blogger

Olympics-like Bidding for Amazon’s HQ2 Is a PR Stunt Meant to Extract Tax Subsidies

By Greg LeRoy Amazon.com’s announcement of a 20-site “short list” for its second headquarters, or “HQ2” location, is provoking a public backlash that could reshape how economic development is done in the United States. In one sense, Amazon is continuing to behave as predicted, staging a public-relations stunt apparently to extract the largest possible subsidies […]

NPR’s All Things Considered: More States Turning To Toll Roads To Raise Cash For Infrastructure

January 18, 2018

“I think the states over time have lost hope in the federal government enacting a real, long-term infrastructure package” says Carl Davis, research director for the non-partisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “And so they’ve taken matters in their own hands and boosted funding on their own.” Davis notes that 26 states have increased […]

Fortune: States Are Trying to Fix the New Tax Law, But They May Make It Worse

January 18, 2018

Below is an excerpt of an op-ed that was published in Fortune by ITEP Senior Fellow Steve Wamhoff Two wrongs don’t make a right. But some state officials, incensed by the new federal tax law’s $10,000 limit on deductions for state and local taxes (SALT), appear to have forgotten this sage advice and are considering […]

New York Times: Apple, Capitalizing on New Tax Law, Plans to Bring Billions in Cash Back to U.S.

January 18, 2018

By shifting the money under the new terms, Apple has saved $43 billion in taxes, more than any other American company, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a research group in Washington. Other tech giants are set to follow suit in the coming months. Companies like Microsoft, Alphabet and Cisco also shifted […]

BBC: Apple to Pay $38 Billion on Foreign Cash Pile

January 18, 2018

Apple is to bring billions of dollars back to the US, and pay a $38bn tax bill as a result. We get analysis from Thomas Brennan, a law professor specialising in tax policy at Harvard University, and Matthew Gardner, senior fellow at the Washington research group the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Read more

City & State: Cuomo’s Tax Work Arounds Would Be Challenging

January 17, 2018

Steve Wamhoff, senior fellow for federal tax policy at the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, gave the example that if a person gave $100 to a public radio station and received a mug in return, they would have to subtract the value of the mug when listing the deduction on their federal taxes. […]

Albany Times-Union: States Release Plans to Shift from Income to Payroll Taxes

January 17, 2018

But the concept has sparked questions from both sides of the political spectrum. “You are making the state code increasingly complicated and for what?” said Steve Wamhoff, a senior tax policy fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a Washington D.C. progressive-leaning group that looks at tax issues such as fairness. Wamhoff notes […]

Charleston Post-Courier: An Abuse of Charitable Giving?

January 14, 2018

Under the new law, some wealthy South Carolinians may actually make a 37 percent profit, risk-free, by making charitable contributions to Exceptional SC, a nonprofit fund created by the state Legislature to administer scholarships to students with disabilities attending private schools. That’s according to a recent report by the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. South Carolina has […]

New York Times: Walmart’s Bumpy Day: From Wage Increase to Store Closings

January 12, 2018

Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonprofit research group, said it was difficult to forecast precisely how much Walmart would save. But based on the company’s average annual United States earnings over the past five years, he said, savings from the cut in the corporate tax rate […]

Bloomberg: Trump’s SALT `War’ Revisited: Most Blue Staters Will Get Tax Cut

January 12, 2018

n blue New Jersey, for instance, the new law will raise taxes on about 285,000 filers earning between $79,890 and $336,620, with a typical hike of about $1,400, according to an analysis by the liberal Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. However, more than 1.2 million New Jerseyans in the same income range will get a […]

New York Magazine: California, New Jersey, and New York Designing Workarounds to Blunt GOP Tax Bill Impact

January 12, 2018

In a memo released in 2011, the Internal Revenue Service gave its blessing for taxpayers to claim federal deductions on those gifts. The combination of a 100 percent state-tax credit and a federal deduction actually makes the gifts profitable for some donors, said Carl Davis, research director for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. […]