Blog
1,405 posts
Why Local Governments Need an Anti-Racist Approach to Property Assessments
• By Ambika Sinha
Property taxes are among the oldest and most relied upon form of local taxes. Revenue raised from these taxes funds education, firefighting, law enforcement, street and infrastructure maintenance, and other essential services. Though all members of the community enjoy these public goods, homeowners of color, especially Black families, pay more as a share of home value in property taxes than their white counterparts.
State Rundown 8/4: Tis the Season…for Unnecessary Sales Tax Holidays
• By ITEP Staff
It’s beginning to look a lot like that time of year again. That’s right, it’s sales tax holiday season and states across the country are doing their best to induce spending that would probably occur regardless...
DC Exemplifies Trend of Tax Justice Victories on the Ground Despite Distractions in the Sky
• By Dylan Grundman O'Neill
This month, we watched billionaire space-racers with skyrocketing fortunes literally rocket themselves into the sky to look down on us from the largest gap they could put between themselves and the people, communities, and institutions that made their fortunes possible. These events have put an exclamation point on one of the clearest lessons to come […]
The Case for Biden’s Tax Agenda
• By ITEP Staff
President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan is the most ambitious economic and social agenda since Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society. It would redirect policy priorities to create educational and economic opportunities for low- and middle-income people and require corporations and wealthy people to pay a fairer share of taxes.
State Rundown 7/21: States Go for Tax Policy Gold This Olympics Season
• By ITEP Staff
It’s Olympics season! As countries around the globe battle for first place in a plethora of sports and contests it’s as good a time as any to look around America to see which states deserve a gold medal in the ‘Equitable Tax Policy’ event...
Child Tax Credit Expansion Acknowledges There Is More We Can Do for Children
• By Aidan Davis
For the next six months, low-, middle- and upper-middle-income families with children are eligible to receive part of their 2021 Child Tax Credit (CTC) in advanced monthly payments. More than putting money in people’s pockets, this policy recognizes “the dignity of working-class families and middle-class families,” as President Biden said last week.
Opposition to Biden’s Tax Plan Has Nothing to Do with Small Businesses or Family Farms
• By Steve Wamhoff
Special interests lobbying against President Joe Biden’s tax agenda claim that his proposed corporate income tax rate hike will harm small businesses and that his proposed capital gains tax reforms will hurt family farms. Both claims are absurd attempts by powerful interests to pretend they are defending the little guy.
Washington Post Confirms that Corporations Are Bolder than Ever in Claiming Dubious Tax Breaks
• By Steve Wamhoff
IRS budget cuts starting in 2010 have forced the agency to reduce its audit rate for corporations with $20 billion or more in assets from 98 percent to 50 percent. The Washington Post found that during the decade, the amount of “uncertain tax benefits” claimed by corporations increased 43 percent, from $164 billion in 2010 to $235 billion in 2020.
The Last Dance for Billionaire Sports Owners?
• By Reggie Rucker
Comparing athletes to inanimate objects, of course, is incredibly degrading. It’s also standard fare in the sports talk world to compare athletes to stocks in which you want to buy low and trade high to maximize your returns—the greatest return usually being championship trophies. It wasn’t until ProPublica released its latest report, The Billionaire Playbook: How Sports Owners Use Their Teams to Avoid Millions in Taxes, that we were able to see so clearly how…
Experts Weigh in on the Payoffs of Advanced Child Tax Credit Payments
• By Jenice R. Robinson
During a Tuesday webinar (The Child Tax Credit in Practice: What We Know about the Payoffs of Payments) hosted by ITEP and the Economic Security Project, panelists explained why the expanded Child Tax Credit is a transformative policy that should be extended beyond 2021. They highlighted tax policy and anti-poverty research and discussed lessons learned from demonstration projects that have provided a guaranteed income to low-income families.
A Divided and Insufficiently Taxed House Cannot Stand
• By Guest Blogger
“It’s not just condominium buildings that are showing their age,” Peter Coy writes in a piece critiquing the condominium form of ownership for underinvesting in maintenance. Coy just as easily could have been describing American democracy that is showing its age in similar ways.
State Rundown 7/7: The New Fiscal Year Starts off With a Bang, And Not Just Fireworks
• By ITEP Staff
States were busy over the past week despite the Fourth of July holiday. Many are gearing up for upcoming tax and budget clashes that could shape their futures for some time...
In Drive to Cut Taxes, States Blow an Opportunity to Invest in Underfunded Services
• By Marco Guzman
Many states find themselves in a peculiar fiscal situation right now: federal pandemic relief money has been dispersed to states and revenue projections have exceeded expectations set during the pandemic. Meanwhile, more and more workers are returning to jobs as vaccines roll out and typical economic activity resumes. Some states, however, have decided to squander their unexpected fiscal strength on tax cuts.
Congress Should Follow States’ Lead on Inclusive Economic Recovery
• By Meg Wiehe
President Joe Biden's American Families and Jobs plans intend to “build back better” and create a more inclusive economy. To fully live up to this ideal, the final plan must include undocumented people and their families.
State Rundown 6/30: Resolutions Are in Order for the New Fiscal Year
• By ITEP Staff
Today is the last day of the fiscal year in many states, and some lawmakers might want to take the opportunity to make some new fiscal year resolutions. Legislators in Arizona, New Hampshire, Ohio, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, for example, should really cut back on the trickle-down tax-cut Kool-Aid, which may make parties with rich donors more fun but tends to be both harmful and habit-forming...
State-Level EITC Victories in 2021
• By Aidan Davis
A growing group of state lawmakers are recognizing the extent to which low- and middle-income Americans are struggling and the ways in which their state and local tax systems can do more to ensure the economic security of their residents over the long run. To that end, lawmakers across the country have made strides in enacting, increasing, or expanding tax credits that benefit low- and middle-income families. Here is a summary of those changes and…
When Tax Breaks for Retirement Savings Enrich the Already Rich
• By Steve Wamhoff
Members of Congress frequently claim they want to make it easier for working people to scrape together enough savings to have some financial security in retirement. But lawmakers’ preferred method to (ostensibly) achieve this goal is through tax breaks that have allowed the tech mogul Peter Thiel to avoid taxes on $5 billion. This is just one of the eye-popping revelations in the latest expose from ProPublica.
State Rundown 6/24: Late June State Fiscal Debates Unusually Active
• By ITEP Staff
Delayed legislative sessions and protracted federal aid debates have made for a busier June than normal for state fiscal debates. Arizona, New Hampshire, and North Carolina legislators, for example, are still pushing for expensive and regressive tax cuts in their states while they remain in session...
Child Tax Credit Expansion Q&A with Aidan Davis
• By Aidan Davis
On July 15, the U.S. Treasury will begin mailing monthly checks to families with children who are eligible for the Child Tax Credit. Previously, the maximum credit was $2,000 per child, but for 2021, President Biden’s American Rescue Plan broadened the credit to $3,600 for each child under six and $3,000 for children over six. The expansion also made eligible children whose parents' incomes were too low to qualify for the previous credit, both addressing…
State Rundown 6/16: Progressive Tax Policy Keeps Racking Up Wins
• By ITEP Staff
Taxing rich households and large corporations to fund vital investments in education and other shared priorities has long been a winner in the eyes of the American public, and more recently has also enjoyed a string of victories in state legislatures and at the ballot box. That win streak continued this week as Arizona’s voter-approved tax surcharge on the rich and Seattle, Washington’s payroll tax on high-profit, high-salary businesses both survived court challenges, and Massachusetts…
Child Tax Credit Is a Critical Component of Biden Administration’s Recovery Package
• By Aidan Davis
Nearly one in seven children in the United States live in poverty and about 6 percent of all children live in deep poverty. President Joe Biden’s American Families Plan would tackle child poverty in an immediate, meaningful way. It is expected to extend the one-year Child Tax Credit (CTC) enhancements included in the March 2021 American Rescue Plan (ARP) through 2025. Next year alone, this would provide around a $110 billion collective income boost to…
U.S. Should Pursue Biden’s Tax Legislation and International Tax Agreement on Separate Tracks
• By Steve Wamhoff
The agreement announced over the weekend from the finance leaders of the Group of 7 (G7) countries to allow governments to tax some corporate profits based on the location of sales and to implement a 15 percent global minimum tax is a major step forward—but in no way changes the need for Congress to enact President Joe Biden’s tax reforms right now.
State Rundown 6/7: Remaining State Legislative Sessions Are Heating up as Budget Deadlines Loom
• By ITEP Staff
Just as an early summer heatwave brought soaring temperatures this past weekend through much of the lower 48 states, several state legislative sessions are heating up as legislators scramble to make tough budget decisions. Massachusetts lawmakers are voting on a fiery new "millionaires' tax" that would support transportation and education revenue needs, and Connecticut will likely restore its state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) back to 30 percent. Illinois’s decision to cut back corporate tax…
State Rundown 5/27: State Legislatures Step Back, Advocates Push Forward
• By ITEP Staff
As more and more state legislatures wrap up their sessions and we reflect on the whirlwind that is this past year, it’s easy to focus on the steps back that states like Oklahoma have taken and Nebraska, North Carolina, and Arizona are trying to take. We have had some significant wins in states over the course of the year, but not every development will be a good one. However, we know advocates are on the…
How Biden’s Plan Would Crack Down on Wealthy Tax Evaders
• By Steve Wamhoff
The Treasury Department released a report explaining what the administration’s tax enforcement plan would do—and how it fits into the president’s overall plan to collect more revenue from profitable corporations and individuals making more than $400,000 a year.
Blog Categories
Institute on Taxation
and Economic Policy
ITEP is a non-profit, non-partisan tax policy organization. We conduct rigorous analyses of tax and economic proposals and provide data-driven recommendations to shape equitable and sustainable tax systems.
Subscribe to ITEP Emails
Tax research and policy news in your inbox.
Promote Fair Tax Policy
Your gift to ITEP promotes tax justice. With your help, we do research that supports taxing millionaires and billionaires, taxing big corporations and raising revenue for the things our people, our communities and our planet need.
Together, we can create a country with more economic justice, more racial justice, more climate justice… and more tax justice.