Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP)

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1,405 posts
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State Rundown 4/24: It’s Crunch Time

• By ITEP Staff

Many state legislative sessions are wrapping up...

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Tax History Matters: A Q&A with Professor Andrew Kahrl, Author of ‘The Black Tax’

• By Brakeyshia Samms

In his new book, The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America, Professor Andrew Kahrl walks readers through the history of the property tax system and its structural defects that have led to widespread discrimination against Black Americans.

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TurboTax Maker Puts a Pink Spin on Exploitative Financial Products

• By Amy Hanauer

This op-ed originally appeared in MSNBC Tax preparation behemoth Intuit (maker of TurboTax) recently unveiled a new campaign branding itself as a feminist company. “When it comes to the complexities of the tax code, women encounter distinct challenges,” reads a post on the company’s official blog, “and here at Intuit, we’re committed to empowering prosperity for […]

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State Rundown 4/17: Tax Cut Proposals and the Consequences of Bad Tax Cuts

• By ITEP Staff

Happy (belated) Tax Day!

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The Case for More Progressive State and Local Tax Systems, in Charts

• By Dylan Grundman O'Neill, Eli Byerly-Duke

In a new chart book, Fairness Matters, we further explore our Who Pays? data with new graphics that reinforce the findings in the main report and demonstrate how state-level tax decisions shape economic divides for better and worse.

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These Three Local EITCs Are Boosting Family Incomes at Tax Time

• By Andrew Boardman

This tax season more than 800,000 households in New York City, Maryland's Montgomery County, and San Francisco are set to receive a boost through local refundable EITCs. These credits put dollars directly into the pockets of low-income households, equipping families with resources to better make ends meet and invest in their futures. In turn, they can help build stronger, fairer, and more resilient communities.

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State Rundown 4/3: Some States Buck the Trend on Foolish Tax Policy

• By ITEP Staff

This week tax cuts were debated across the upper Midwest...

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Five Things to Know About Tax Foundation’s Critique of Maryland’s Worldwide Combined Reporting Proposal

• By Carl Davis, Matthew Gardner

Maryland lawmakers are considering enacting worldwide combined reporting (WWCR), also known as complete reporting. This policy offers a more accurate, and less gameable, way to calculate the amount of profit subject to state corporate tax. Enacting WWCR in Maryland would represent a huge step toward eliminating state corporate tax avoidance as it neutralizes a wide […]

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Biden Is Right: Corporate Tax Avoidance Has Big Problems That We Can Fix

• By Jon Whiten

Sensible reforms to the corporate tax system can help both crack down on corporate tax avoidance and ensure companies that are flourishing are paying their share for the public infrastructure that forms the building blocks of their success.

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State Rundown 3/28: Tax Cut Madness, But Our Brackets Bet on Tax Fairness

• By ITEP Staff

While madness is typically reserved for basketball in March, several high-profile, regressive tax cuts are making their way through state legislatures this week...

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Congress Should Enhance – Not Diminish – IRS Capability this Tax Season

• By Joe Hughes

While funding cuts to the IRS may have been necessary as a political matter to avoid harmful agency shutdowns, they are severely misguided as a policy matter. By all serious accounts, cuts to IRS funding increase the deficit due to uncollected taxes – mostly from big businesses and the very wealthy.

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Our Taxes Can Set Kids Up for Success

• By Brakeyshia Samms

Every child deserves the opportunity to succeed in society – and tax policy has a huge role to play in making that happen. Better tax policy can help prepare our young children with skills to become successful and thriving adults.

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The Estate Tax Should Help to Level the Playing Field. Instead it’s Letting the Rich Get Richer.

• By Amy Hanauer

The federal estate tax should ensure that family dynasties who’ve amassed enormous fortunes pay their fair share in taxes. But because policymakers have repeatedly doubled and tripled the immense sums that can be passed on before the tax kicks in, the estate tax today affects almost no one.

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State Rundown 3/20: Investments Over Cuts

• By ITEP Staff

Over the past week Utah continued its slow march toward a more inequitable tax code...

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States Move to Tax the Top in 2024

• By Marco Guzman, Miles Trinidad

These forward-thinking states are demonstrating the wide variety of options for policymakers who want to raise more from the wealthiest people, rein in corporate tax avoidance, create fair tax codes and build strong communities.  

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Eliminating Income Taxes Would Be an Expensive Giveaway

• By Aidan Davis

Governors and legislative leaders in a dozen states have made calls to fully eliminate their taxes on personal or corporate income, after many states already deeply slashed them over the past few years. The public deserves to know the true impact of these plans, which would inevitably result in an outsized windfall to states’ richest taxpayers, more power in the hands of wealthy households and corporations, extreme cuts to basic public services, and more deeply inequitable state…

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State Rundown 3/14: Sessions are Heating Up

• By ITEP Staff

Many state legislative sessions are in the final stretch...

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Ahead of the ‘Bring Chicago Home’ Vote, Remember That Local Mansion Taxes are Tried and Tested

• By Andrew Boardman, Kamolika Das

As Chicago and other localities look for ways to shore up resources for critical public investments, it's important to remember that over a dozen cities and counties have already benefited from policies like mansion taxes.

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Recent Tax Cuts Have Expanded Inequality in the States

• By Jon Whiten

Some states have improved tax equity by raising new revenue from the well-off and creating or expanding refundable tax credits for low- and moderate-income families in recent years. Others, however, have gone the opposite direction, pushing through deep and damaging tax cuts that disproportionately help the rich. Many of these negative developments are quantified in […]

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Tax Proposals Expected to be in President Biden’s Budget Plan

• By Steve Wamhoff

President Biden discussed multiple tax proposals during the State of the Union address to Congress. Several of these proposals appeared in the budget plan he submitted to Congress last year, but at least two appear to be new proposals. Raise Corporate Tax Rate from 21 Percent to 28 Percent 10-Year Revenue Impact in President’s Previous […]

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State Rundown 3/6: Tax Cuts Aren’t Forever, or for Evers

• By ITEP Staff

Anti-tax interests finally found the end of the tax cutting appetite in a few states this week...

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Tax Cuts Fail Again in Kansas and Wisconsin; Lawmakers Should Pivot to Proven Investments

• By Neva Butkus

The governors of both Kansas and Wisconsin recently stood up to legislators who tried to push through costly tax cuts that would overwhelmingly benefit the most well-off. Lawmakers in those states and others should shift their focus from expensive, top-heavy tax cuts to tried and true policies that help middle-class and low-income families.

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Moving the Needle Toward Tax Fairness in the States

• By Jon Whiten

While many state lawmakers have spent the past few years debating deep and damaging tax cuts that disproportionately help the rich, more forward-thinking lawmakers have improved tax equity by raising new revenue from the well-off and creating or expanding refundable tax credits for low- and moderate-income families.

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State Rundown 2/28: States Keep Busy While Washington Stalls

• By ITEP Staff

State legislative sessions are in full swing with New Jersey and Oklahoma both particularly active this week...

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State Rundown 2/22: Some Top-Heavy Tax Cut Proposals are Getting the Chop

• By ITEP Staff

With many state legislatures now in full swing with activity heating up, some tax cut proposals have lost steam...