Category: Federal Policy
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Steve Wamhoff
Director of Federal Tax PolicyCue Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman. In their new book, The Triumph of Injustice, the economists, who already jolted the world with their shocking data on exploding income inequality and wealth inequality, tell us to stop acting like we are paralyzed when it comes to tax policy. There are answers and solutions. And in about 200 surprisingly readable pages, they provide them. -
Steve Wamhoff
Director of Federal Tax PolicyOctober 2, 2019
How a Federal Wealth Tax Can Help the Economy
A New York Times article explained that proponents of a federal wealth tax hope to address exploding inequality but then went on to list the fears of billionaires and economic policymakers, finding that “the idea of redistributing wealth by targeting billionaires is stirring fierce debates at the highest ranks of academia and business, with opponents arguing it would cripple economic growth, sap the motivation of entrepreneurs who aspire to be multimillionaires and set off a search for loopholes.” A wealth tax will not damage our economy and instead would likely improve it. Here’s why. -
Carl Davis
Research DirectorA well-designed carbon tax package—that is, levied at a sufficiently high rate and paired with equitable offsets for lower- and middle-income families—could improve both our environment and the fairness of our tax system. -
Steve Wamhoff
Director of Federal Tax PolicySeptember 19, 2019
Capital Gains Tax Breaks Are Finally on the Defensive
One of the most glaring sources of unfairness in the federal tax code are rules that tax capital gains, which mostly go to the rich, less than wages and other types of income that most of us depend on. The capital gains tax breaks have for decades been comfortably ensconced behind trenches filled with special interests who would defend them until the end. But the end is now conceivable. -
Steve Wamhoff
Director of Federal Tax PolicySeptember 17, 2019
Julián Castro Provides the Latest Proposal to Expand Refundable Tax Credits
New estimates from ITEP show that Julián Castro’s refundable tax credit proposal would mostly benefit the bottom 60 percent of households and would have a cost ($195 billion in 2020) that places it roughly in the middle of the different tax credit proposals that Democrats have offered over the past several months. -
ITEP Staff
September 16, 2019
The Case for a Federal Wealth Tax
A federal wealth tax on the richest 0.1 percent of Americans is a viable approach for Congress to raise revenue and address economic inequality. This new video from ITEP makes the case for a federal wealth tax. -
Jenice R. Robinson
Communications DirectorSeptember 12, 2019
Why Are Ideologues Trying to Downplay Poverty and Economic Inequality?
Our elected officials should pause and check the pulse of the nation. The public is aware of the great income divide and likely isn’t keen on an agenda that would use sleight of hand to “reduce” poverty and spend less on domestic programs—particularly when that agenda is in tandem with using the tax code to further boost income for the wealthy. -
Steve Wamhoff
Director of Federal Tax PolicySeptember 12, 2019
Sen. Wyden’s Anti-Deferral Accounting Proposal Could Be a Game-Changer
Today, Sen. Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, fulfilled a promise he made several months ago to release a proposal that could fundamentally transform how the U.S. taxes capital gains of the wealthy. The paper he released today proposes “anti-deferral accounting” to ensure that wealthy people are taxed on all of […] -
Jessica Schieder
Federal Tax Policy FellowRefundable federal tax credits, including the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC), lifted 7.9 million people out of poverty in 2018. This latest analysis from the U.S. Census Bureau demonstrates the power of federal programs to alleviate poverty and help low-income families keep up with the increasing cost of living. -
ITEP Staff
September 10, 2019
How Tax Policy Can Help Mitigate Poverty, Address Income Inequality
Analysts at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy have produced multiple recent briefs and reports that provide insight on how current and proposed tax policies affect family economic security and income inequality. -
Steve Wamhoff
Director of Federal Tax PolicyPresident Trump’s allies in Congress continue to defend their 2017 tax law in misleading ways. Just last week, Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee stated that most “of the tax overhaul went into the pockets of working families and Main Street businesses who need it most, not Wall Street.” ITEP’s most recent analysis estimates that in 2020 the richest 5 percent of taxpayers will receive $145 billion in tax cuts, or half the law's benefits to U.S. taxpayers. -
Steve Wamhoff
Director of Federal Tax PolicyThe Trump Administration is considering cutting the Social Security payroll tax to prevent an economic downturn, something that seemed more justified when enacted in the aftermath of the Great Recession—when congressional Republicans largely opposed it. Here are some things to remember about this tax. -
Matthew Gardner
Senior FellowIf you squint really hard, the Business Roundtable’s newly declared fondness for “supporting the communities in which we work” could be read as an acknowledgment of the need for a tax system that can pay for needed services. But it’s not. -
Carl Davis
Research DirectorLawmakers are seeking to achieve a backdoor repeal of the $10,000 cap on deductions for state and local taxes paid (SALT) by invalidating recent IRS regulations that cracked down on schemes that let taxpayers dodge the cap. If successful, their efforts would drain tens of billions of dollars from federal coffers each year, with the vast majority of the benefits going to the nation’s wealthiest families. -
Steve Wamhoff
Director of Federal Tax PolicyIn recent days, presidential candidates Sen. Kamala Harris and New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio have called for taxing corporate profits the same whether they are earned in the United States or abroad. These calls echo the position of Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has long had a proposal along these lines. As ITEP has explained, correcting […] -
Steve Wamhoff
Director of Federal Tax PolicyJuly 31, 2019
A Wealth Tax Might Be Easier to Implement than You Think
A direct federal tax on wealth, as described in a January report from ITEP and proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, could raise substantial revenue to make public investments, curb rising inequality, and is supported by a large majority of Americans. But would it work? Recent research highlighted in a new academic paper outlines approaches that would make it easier than you might think. -
Steve Wamhoff
Director of Federal Tax PolicyIf a future Congress and president enact a real tax reform, one that requires corporations to pay their fair share and ends TCJA’s various corporate breaks for offshore profits, then companies will use inversions and other tactics to dodge taxes once again—if lawmakers let them. That’s why any real tax reform will include something like the Stop Corporate Inversions Act, introduced last week by Sens. Dick Durbin and Jack Reed to block inversions. -
Steve Wamhoff
Director of Federal Tax PolicyThe White House is reported to be planning to unilaterally adjust the way capital gains are assessed to benefit the wealthiest Americans. The proposal would adjust capital gains for inflation, reducing taxes disproportionately for the wealthiest households who own most assets by limiting their taxable gains to those above and beyond the inflation rate. -
Steve Wamhoff
Director of Federal Tax PolicyA February survey found that 61 percent of registered voters supported a wealth tax proposal, including 51 percent of Republican voters. And it’s not just the non-rich wanting to tax the very rich. A June survey found that 60 percent of millionaires support the idea. -
Steve Wamhoff
Director of Federal Tax PolicyA refundable tax credit proposed by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) would be more expansive than other recent tax credit proposals, new estimates from ITEP show. Rep. Tlaib’s proposal, unlike others, does not require households to work to receive the benefit. -
Steve Wamhoff
Director of Federal Tax PolicyAmerica needs a new tax code. The Democratic presidential debates beginning this week present an opportunity for candidates to make clear how they would address inequality or to raise enough revenue to make public investments that make the economy work for everyone. Here are some of the big tax issues that we hope they will touch on. -
Carl Davis
Research DirectorA House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing on Tuesday will explore a highly controversial provision of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) that prevents individuals and families from writing off more than $10,000 in state and local tax (SALT) payments on their federal tax forms each year. The focus of the hearing will be whether the cap negatively affects state and local revenue streams that fund schools, firefighters, and other services. There are at least three ways this could happen though only one of those is plausible, and it’s not the one that the organizers of this hearing likely expected. -
Carl Davis
Research DirectorToday the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released its final regulations cracking down on a tax shelter long favored by private and religious K-12 schools, and more recently adopted by some “blue state” lawmakers in the wake of the 2017 Trump tax cut. The regulations come more than a year after the IRS first announced the […] -
Carl Davis
Research DirectorAfter states implemented laws that allow taxpayers to circumvent the new $10,000 cap on deductions for state and local taxes (SALT), the IRS has proposed regulations to address this practice. It’s a safe bet the IRS will try to crack down on the newest policies that provide tax credits for donations to public education and other public services, but it remains to be seen whether new regulations will put an end to a longer-running practice of exploiting tax loopholes in some states that allow public money to be funneled to private schools. -
Alan Essig
Executive DirectorUsing the tax code to boost the economic security of low- and moderate-income families is a proven strategy. These bold proposals would go much further than any policy currently on the books, and their approach directly contrasts with longstanding supply-side theories that call for continual tax cuts to those who are already economically faring far better than everyone else.
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