Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP)

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ITEP's Citations Research Priorities

This testimony was delivered to the Connecticut General Assembly Finance Committee on February 26, 2026. My name is Marco Guzman, and I am a Senior Analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). ITEP is a non-profit, non-partisan tax policy organization, conducting rigorous analyses of tax and economic proposals and providing data-driven recommendations […]

Audio: ITEP’s Marco Guzman Talks About the Tax Payments of Connecticut’s Undocumented Immigrants

August 1, 2024

CT’s undocumented immigrants pay over $400 million in taxes annually, study finds. Read more or listen here.

Connecticut Mirror: Could CT Fight Homelessness With a ‘Mansion Tax’? Yes, Report Says

July 3, 2024

State government could raise as much as $180 million annually to combat homelessness or address other social needs by boosting its tax on the sale of high-value houses, according to a recent report from two Washington fiscal think tanks.

Good afternoon, Senator Fonfara, Representative Horn, and members of the Committee, and thank you for this opportunity to testify. My name is Marco Guzman and I'm a senior policy analyst with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, or ITEP, and we’re a nonprofit research organization that focuses on state, local, and federal tax policy issues. 

Pluribus News: States Advance Child Tax Credits as Congress Deliberates

December 15, 2022

Lawmakers in Connecticut, New York and several other states want to expand tax breaks for families with children next year, inspired by a 2021 federal tax credit that dramatically reduced child poverty. Read more.

Although Connecticut has the second highest level of per capita personal income in the US, making it exceptionally wealthy overall, many families consistently struggle because Connecticut also has the second highest level of income inequality and a substantial racial income gap, meaning a small, disproportionately white portion of the population primarily benefits from the state’s […]

Bloomberg: The Myth of the Middle-Class SALT Cap Victim

April 23, 2021

Once again, if you make well under $1 million a year and your tax rate really did go up from 2017 to 2018 because of the SALT cap, I’m not denying that your suffering is real. But you appear to be in a distinct minority even in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, California and other […]

(Connecticut) Middletown-Press: Stamford-based Charter Communications Paid No Federal Income Taxes in 2020, New Report Shows

April 6, 2021

The treatment of Charter and the 54 other companies “continues a decades-long trend of corporate tax avoidance by the biggest U.S. corporations, and it appears to be the product of longstanding tax breaks preserved or expanded by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, as well as the CARES Act tax breaks enacted in the […]

Connecticut Post: State Rep. Sean Scanlon (opinion): State child tax credit would ease burden on families

March 24, 2021

The good news for families is that President Biden’s recently passed stimulus bill features a provision long championed by my Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro that not only makes the tax credit fully refundable but also expands the credit from $2,000 to $3,000 for children 6 to 17 and to $3,600 per child under the age of […]

Connecticut Voices for Children released a new report, “Advancing Economic Justice Through Tax Reform,” which proposes a tax restructure so that the system is fair for all residents. The report provides an overview of economic injustice in Connecticut, Connecticut’s regressive tax system and shows that it is a key contributor to the economic injustice in the state, […]

Newsweek: Joe Biden Tax Calculator—How Democrat Candidate’s Plan Will Affect You

October 29, 2020

A report earlier this month by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C., noted: “Just 1.9 percent of taxpayers would see a direct tax hike (an increase in either personal income taxes, payroll taxes, or both) if Biden’s tax proposals were in effect in 2022. The […]

Connecticut Mirror: CT’s unflappable sales tax faces unprecedented threat from coronavirus

April 13, 2020

“Early indications are that consumers are cutting back or spending much less due to personal economic uncertainty,” analysts for the Washington, D.C.-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy [ITEP] wrote in a report predicting an unprecedented drop nationwide in states’ sales tax revenues. “Even people who still have jobs may substantially cut back their spending […]

Connecticut Mirror: After one alarming tax fairness study, CT is wary of launching a second

March 3, 2020

Gasoline distributors shift the entire cost of Connecticut’s 8.1% wholesale fuel tax onto local filling stations, which then pass it all onto motorists — who also pay a 25-cents-per-gallon retail tax. Meg Wiehe, deputy executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said Connecticut already is a land of “stagnating working-class incomes” and […]

Hartford Business Journal: CT Voices proposes major state tax shift to reverse inequality

January 16, 2020

And creation of a new Child Tax Credit could provide poor and middle-income residents — even those earning nearly $500,000 per year — as much as $800 to $1,550 on each filer’s annual refund. “The child tax credit has been found to have staggering impacts on poverty reduction,” said Meg Wiehe, deputy executive director for […]

Connecticut Voices for Children released a report that examined the state’s income and wealth inequality and the state’s regressive tax system that exacerbates these inequalities.

The report recommends that state legislators and the Governor repeal the state’s Bond Lock, revise the volatility cap, and implement additional tax reforms that begin to correct the state’s regressive revenue system by asking more of the state’s wealthiest residents. Read more

Hartford Courant: We Are a Group of Wealthy Connecticut residents, and we want to pay more in taxes.

May 14, 2019

Connecticut was slow to recover from the Great Recession. Meanwhile, inequality has skyrocketed. As the economy grew coming out of the recession, 100 percent of increased income in Connecticut has gone to the top 1 percent of earners. At the same time, the remaining 99 percent of income earners have seen their income decline, on […]

Staff experts from our national partners – Elizabeth McNichol of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and Aidan Davis of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy – joined Jamie Mills of Connecticut Voices for Children in submitting powerful testimony before the Finance Committee in support of a modest surcharge on capital gains earned […]

Smart state fiscal policies can play a critical role in building strong, equitable state economies. It is time we fix our tax laws to give working people and children a fair shot to get ahead by pursuing twin goals of assuring adequate revenues to support the programs and services vital to the well-being of our […]

Connecticut Post: Pot Tax Rate Key to Driving Down Illegal Market in Conn.

April 14, 2019

But potency-based taxation requires good laboratories and technology to accurately test THC levels, said Uetake who teaches marketing at Yale’s School of Management. “Reliability and replicability of testing remain problematic,” wrote Carl Davis, Misha E. Hill and Richard Phillips of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy in a 2019 policy paper. “Cannabis testing laboratories […]

Connecticut faces a $4 billion deficit over the Fiscal Years 2020-21 biennial budget. Without adequate revenues, painful budget cuts that could fall heavily on children and families are inevitable. Read more

As the General Assembly develops its biennial budget facing a $4 billion deficit, Connecticut Voices for Children urges legislators and the Governor to adopt a balanced approach by adopting revenue streams that enhance the fairness of our tax system while providing the adequate funds to sustain us today and to invest for tomorrow. Budget cuts […]

Connecticut’s long-term fiscal health and economic growth depend on policies that improve equity and support our most vulnerable families and children. Governor Lamont’s proposed state budget avoids additional major cuts to essential programs and services, though it is based on revenue proposals that fall most heavily on our lowest income taxpayers. It asks little of […]

Faced with increasingly difficult decisions in crafting the Fiscal Year (FY) 2018-19 biennial budget, the Connecticut General Assembly found itself at an impasse. In order to break the log jam, the legislature included drastic measures in the final budget deal. It is increasingly clear that the long-term effects of these measures will be damaging to […]

City Lab: The Airbnb Effect: It’s Not Just Rising Home Prices

February 4, 2019

And cities with less stringent Airbnb regulations might also be losing out on a lot of tax revenue. Traditional lodging entities (when combining city, state, and county taxes), are taxed at an average rate of 13 percent in the 150 largest cities. But Airbnb is treated differently in different jurisdictions, and is trusted to self-report […]