Blog
1,405 posts
The Nation’s Income Inequality Challenge Explained in Charts
• By Stephanie Clegg
Income inequality has reached its highest level since the U.S. Census Bureau began tracking the measure more than 50 years ago, according to recent data. While recent Census data show modest increases in median household income and average hourly wages—numbers anti-tax politicians and pundits have used to deny rising inequality—a deeper look at some of the latest numbers reveals a decades-long trend of widening economic inequality.
State Rundown 9/26: Shady State Business Tax Subsidies Coming to Light
• By ITEP Staff
Lawmakers in Michigan and New Hampshire made progress toward enacting their state budgets, though Michigan may yet end up in a government shutdown. Leaders in Wyoming advanced a proposal to create a limited tax on large corporations to raise some revenue and add a progressive element to their state’s tax code. Georgia agencies are forced to recommend their own funding cuts amid state income tax cuts. And business tax subsidies are looking particularly bad in…
A Well-Designed Carbon Tax Could Curb Emissions, Offset Costs for Many Families
• By Carl Davis
A 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.
Maine Reaches Tax Fairness Milestone
• By Guest Blogger
Lawmakers in Maine this year took bold steps toward making the state’s tax system fairer. Their actions demonstrate that political will can dramatically alter state tax policy landscape to improve economic well-being for low-income families while also ensuring the wealthy pay a fairer share.
Wealth Tax Proposals from Warren and Sanders: What You Should Know
• By Steve Wamhoff
Earlier this year, Sen. Elizabeth Warren proposed a federal wealth tax on a handful of U.S. households with the highest net worth. Sen. Bernie Sanders has just announced his own wealth tax proposal, which is similar to Warren’s. A few other presidential candidates say they support the concept although they have not provided any details. Here's what you need to know about the potential for a federal wealth tax.
Business Roundtable Members’ Social Responsibility Pledges are Easily Made, and Easily Broken
• By Matthew Gardner
It was this side of last month that the Business Roundtable made headlines by announcing its new vision of the purpose of a corporation. More than 180 corporate leaders signed the statement, which declared corporations will prioritize the communities in which they work—instead of shareholder value. But for some corporations, the Business Roundtable statement is yesterday’s news, and they are commencing with business as usual.
Capital Gains Tax Breaks Are Finally on the Defensive
• By Steve Wamhoff
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.
Julián Castro Provides the Latest Proposal to Expand Refundable Tax Credits
• By Steve Wamhoff
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.
The Case for a Federal Wealth Tax
• By ITEP Staff
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.
Why Are Ideologues Trying to Downplay Poverty and Economic Inequality?
• By Jenice R. Robinson
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.
State Rundown 9/12: Work Continues to Flip the Script on Backwards Tax Codes
• By ITEP Staff
Residents of several states are spending their palindrome week reading ballot initiatives forwards and backwards to decide whether or not to support them, including measures to improve education funding in California and Idaho, allow Alaska and Colorado to invest more in public services, and constitutionally prohibit income taxation in Texas. New Jersey lawmakers are giving the same thorough treatment to the state’s corporate tax subsidies. And advocates in Chicago, Illinois, have a bold proposal to…
Sen. Wyden’s Anti-Deferral Accounting Proposal Could Be a Game-Changer
• By Steve Wamhoff
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 […]
Census Numbers Show the Power of the Tax Code to Direct Resources to Low-Income Families
• By Jessica Schieder
Refundable 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.
How Tax Policy Can Help Mitigate Poverty, Address Income Inequality
• By ITEP Staff
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.
Why Local Jurisdictions’ Heavy Reliance on Fines and Fees Is a Tax Policy Issue
• By Meg Wiehe
The exposé (Addicted to Fines: Small Towns Are Dangerously Dependent) raises two important issues that policymakers have the power to address. One, lack of revenue at the local level is linked to a broader challenge with state tax systems. Two, fines and fees often entrap lower-income people in a cycle of debt and, in some jurisdictions, ultimately criminalize poverty by casting unpaid fines as misdemeanor crimes.
ICYMI: A Brief Summary of Our August Blogs and Reports
• By ITEP Staff
DESPITE CONTRARY CLAIMS, NUMBERS SHOW TRUMP TAX LAW STILL FAVORS THE WEALTHY GOP leaders continue to misrepresent who benefits from the 2017 Trump-GOP tax law, most recently claiming most “of the tax overhaul went into the pockets of working families and Main Street businesses who need it most, not Wall Street.” But the numbers prove […]
New Analysis: A Third of NC Taxpayers Won’t Benefit from Proposed Tax Refund Plan
• By Guest Blogger
North Carolina Senate and House leaders are moving forward with a flawed proposal to spend the majority of the state’s revenue over collections, more than $600 million, to issue tax refund checks of $125 per taxpayer ($250 for married couples).
State Rundown 8/29: August or Ugh-ust Summer Tax Debates?
• By ITEP Staff
The hottest, stickiest month of the year has left a grimy feeling on several state tax debates, as Idaho lawmakers find themselves unable to fund the state’s priorities after years of cutting taxes, Alaskans express their support for public investments to their governor’s polling office and then watch the governor slash them anyway, New Jersey lawmakers go to bat for ineffective and corrupt business tax subsidies, and residents of North Carolina watch their representatives pursue…
Updated Estimates from ITEP: Trump Tax Law Still Benefits the Rich No Matter How You Look at It
• By Steve Wamhoff
President 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…
Why California’s Cannabis Market May Not Tell You Much about Legalization in Your State
• By Carl Davis
New tax data out of California, the world’s largest market for legal cannabis, tell a complicated story about the cannabis industry and its tax revenue potential. Legal cannabis markets take time to establish, and depending on local market conditions, the revenue states raise can vary significantly.
White House Considers Payroll Tax Cut that GOP Opposed During Obama Years
• By Steve Wamhoff
The 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.
Business Roundtable’s Newfound Devotion to Corporate Responsibility Doesn’t Include Paying Taxes
• By Matthew Gardner
If 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.
One Tax System for Most Americans, and a Second System for the Wealthiest
• By Matthew Gardner
Last year, the Walton family's fortune grew by $100 million a day. This level of wealth is particularly obscene in the context of the Walmart Corporation’s dark store strategy. The company works nationwide to reduce its property tax assessments, which, when successful, deprives local communities of revenue necessary to fund education, libraries, parks, public health and other services.
State Rundown 8/15: A Tax-Subsidy Cease-Fire in Kansas and Missouri
• By ITEP Staff
Over the last couple of weeks, leaders in Kansas and Missouri reached a historic agreement to stop giving away tax subsidies just to entice companies a couple of miles across their shared state line. Meanwhile, policymakers in Alaska resolved a stand-off over education funding...by cutting education funding slightly less. And California voters may be voting in 2020 on a stronger reform to the notoriously inequitable property tax effects of “Proposition 13.”
IRS’s SALT Workaround Regulations Should be Strengthened, Not Rejected
• By Carl Davis
Lawmakers 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.
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.