December 13, 2017 • By Steve Wamhoff
Parents of college students or kids in their last years of high school are more likely to face a tax hike than others under the tax legislation moving through Congress. Higher education has entered the tax debate because the House bill (but not the Senate bill) would repeal several provisions that make college and graduate education more accessible. But little thought has been given to how the tax bills would affect the parents of college students in more direct ways and make it difficult for them to finance college for their kids. If tax legislation were allowed a reasonable number…
As 2017 draws to close, Congress has yet to take legislative action to protect Dreamers. The young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children, and are largely working or in school, were protected by President Obama’s 2012 executive action, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). But in September, President Trump announced that he would end DACA in March 2018. Instead of honoring the work authorizations and protection from deportation that currently shields more than 685,000 young people, President Trump punted their lives and livelihood to a woefully divided Congress which is expected to take up legislation…
December 12, 2017 • By Steve Wamhoff
In his inaugural speech, President Trump told the world that Washington would be driven by a principle of “America First.” But the tax plans moving through Congress only put the richest Americans first. Everyone else comes after foreign investors.
December 12, 2017 • By Steve Wamhoff
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin claimed for weeks that his department would release a study showing that the $1.5 trillion tax cut moving through Congress would “pay for itself.” On Monday he released a one-page memo that asserts, without evidence, that economic growth resulting from President Trump’s policies would raise enough revenue to more than offset the costs of the tax cuts.
December 10, 2017 • By Meg Wiehe, Steve Wamhoff
Republicans in Congress are reported to be considering two versions of a change they claim would “improve” the current bills by making them more generous to residents of higher-taxed states. As illustrated by these estimates, the reality is that these proposals would make little difference on those states and taxpayers hit hardest.
December 10, 2017 • By Meg Wiehe, Steve Wamhoff
The Senate tax bill, with or without either of the compromises that could be added to it, would shift personal income taxes away from Florida and Texas to states like California and New York, which are already paying a high share relative to their populations.
December 7, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
Though most eyes were on Congress rather than states this week, several states have been taking stock of their fiscal situations. Wyoming lawmakers considered ways to resolve budget shortfalls, Kansas and New Mexico legislators got some minor good news about their states' revenues, their counterparts in Minnesota and Vermont grappled with less encouraging revenue news, and those in West Virginia were just happy to hear their revenues had at least met expectations for once.
December 7, 2017 • By Carl Davis
In the ongoing debate over major federal tax legislation, there is significant focus on how House and Senate bills would eliminate the deduction for state income tax payments and cap the deduction for property taxes at $10,000 per year. At the same time, tax writers have retained deductions for charitable gifts and mortgage interest with what appear to be comparatively minor changes, at least at first glance.
December 4, 2017 • By Jenice Robinson
The hand-written scrawls in the margins of the hastily written 500-page Senate tax bill had barely dried when lawmakers began to reveal the true motivation behind their rush to fundamentally overhaul the nation’s tax code.
December 1, 2017 • By Carl Davis
The U.S. Senate will soon be voting on a bill that would, among other things, allow so-called “pass-through” businesses to pay significantly lower taxes than their employees...If the Senate “pass-through” deduction is enacted into law, dozens of states will be forced to confront the possibility of reduced revenue collections, more regressive tax codes, and increased tax avoidance.
December 1, 2017 • By Steve Wamhoff
A new report from ITEP provides more details on the many breaks and loopholes for wealthy real estate investors like Trump and what a true tax reform would do to close them.
December 1, 2017 • By Carl Davis
Adding a property tax deduction back into the Senate bill may sound like a compromise, but a new analysis performed using the ITEP Microsimulation Tax Model reveals that the amount of state and local taxes deducted by Maine residents would plummet by 90 percent under this change, from $2.58 billion to just $262 million in 2019. In short, this change is much more symbolic than substantive.
November 30, 2017 • By Steve Wamhoff
Senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Steve Daines of Montana want the tax bill on the Senate floor to be amended to offer a more generous tax break for “pass-through” businesses. We have estimated how all the provisions in the tax bill would impact each income group under three possible scenarios. The only thing different in each scenario is the size of the deduction for pass-through income: 17.4 percent (the deduction in the bill as this is written), 20 percent and 27 percent. We find that the size of the pass-through break makes no difference for anyone who is not…
November 30, 2017 • By Carl Davis
The centerpiece of the House and Senate tax plans is a major tax cut for profitable corporations that the American public does not want, and that will overwhelmingly benefit a small number of wealthy investors living in traditionally “blue” states. New ITEP research shows that poorer states such as West Virginia, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Tennessee would be largely left behind by a corporate tax cut, while the lion’s share of the benefits would remain with a relatively small number of wealthy investors who tend to be concentrated in larger cities near the nation’s coasts.
November 30, 2017 • By Alan Essig
George Washington is said to have described the U.S. Senate as the body that cools the passions of an impulsive House of Representatives just as a saucer cools tea. But current Senate leaders appear to think of themselves as more of a Bunsen burner.
November 30, 2017 • By Steve Wamhoff
One of the findings is that every income group would face higher personal income taxes in years after 2025 (including 2027). Chained CPI would gradually push taxpayers into higher income tax brackets and make the standard deduction, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and several other breaks less generous over time. The switch to chained CPI would cause some low-income people to face a tax hike starting in 2019, the second year the plan would be in effect.
The State Rundown is back from Thanksgiving break with a heaping helping of leftover state tax news, but beware, some of it may be rotten.
November 22, 2017 • By Steve Wamhoff
One of the more surprising findings of ITEP’s recent estimates on the Senate tax bill is that 19 states would pay more overall in federal taxes if the bill becomes law. This is not just an increase in the personal income taxes paid (which would happen in some states under the House bill). This is an increase in their net federal taxes overall, even including the assumed benefits of corporate tax cuts and estate tax cuts.
November 21, 2017 • By Richard Phillips
Instead of addressing the hundreds of billions in lost federal tax revenue due to offshore tax avoidance schemes, the Senate tax bill would forgive most of the taxes owed on these profits and open the floodgates to even more offshore profit-shifting in the future.
ITEP has analyzed each of the tax proposals advanced by the House and Senate in recent weeks. While some details have changed, the bottom line is the same: The plans would disproportionately benefit corporations and the wealthy. The Senate tax plan ITEP’s latest analysis examined the proposal that passed the Senate Finance Committee on Nov. […]
November 14, 2017 • By Jenice Robinson
The bottom line is that the rich and corporations are doing fine. We don’t need legislative solutions that fix non-existent problems. Only in a world of alternative facts does the top 0.2 percent of estates need to be exempt from the estate tax, for example.
November 14, 2017 • By Steve Diese
A year and a half after the release of the Panama Papers, a new set of data leaks, the Paradise Papersreleased by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) provides important new information on the tax dodging of wealthy individuals as well as multinational corporations.
November 14, 2017 • By Carl Davis
An ITEP analysis reveals that four states would see their residents pay more in aggregate federal personal income taxes under the House’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. While some individual taxpayers in every state would face a tax increase, only California, New York, Maryland, and New Jersey would see such large increases that their residents’ overall personal income tax payments rise when compared to current law.
November 13, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
The House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on a bill that would reduce federal revenues by roughly $1.5 trillion over the next decade. Despite the bill’s high price tag, many households would pay more in federal tax if the bill is enacted, in large part because it slashes the deduction for state […]
November 9, 2017 • By Carl Davis
In a story published yesterday evening, Politico reported that House leaders have been “working to create customized data models” to show lawmakers that their constituents will not face a tax increase under the tax bill being debated in the House. On this point, House leaders have taken on an impossible task.