Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP)

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The tax bill that recently passed the Iowa Senate included a provision from the recent federal tax cut bill that provides preferential tax treatment for certain kinds of business income earned mostly by the highest income taxpayers. The “Qualified Business Income Deduction” (QBID) provides a 20 percent exemption of that income from the personal income tax.

The tax bill that recently passed the Iowa Senate included a provision from the recent federal tax cut bill that provides preferential tax treatment for certain kinds of business income earned mostly by the highest income taxpayers. The “Qualified Business Income Deduction” (QBID) provides a 20 percent exemption of that income from the personal income […]

Bangor Daily News: Wealth Hasn’t Trickled Down, It’s Surged Upward

March 17, 2018

Along the same lines, Republicans claim that reductions in the corporate tax rate will lead to higher wages for workers. Evidence suggests this isn’t true, either. After Reagan signed a tax overhaul in 1986 that reduced the country’s corporate tax rate from 46 percent to 34 percent, wages fell for four years. Despite this data, […]

Christian Science Monitor: In Blue States, ‘Tax the Rich’ Isn’t So Simple Anymore

March 16, 2018

The upset that governors like Cuomo and others are voicing is understandable, says Meg Wiehe, deputy director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning research group. These states see they’re getting the short end of the stick from the federal law, and they suspect that Republican motives were at least partly political. […]

Iowa’s General Assembly opened with promises from legislative leadership and the Governor for tax reform. We noted key opportunities to assure a fairer and sustainable system in a brief report last fall, “Introduction to 2018: What should be part of tax reform? And what should not?”[i] These options remain; some are gaining attention — such as the elimination of federal deductibility and the closing of sales tax loopholes — and some are not.

Fiscal Times: Liberals and Conservative Agree Sneaky Tax Breaks Have to Go

March 16, 2018

There was rare agreement across the political spectrum at the House Ways and Means Tax Policy subcommittee hearing this week, with policy experts from Heritage Foundation, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the Center for American Progress, Taxpayers for Common Sense and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget supporting the elimination of “tax […]

E.I.T.C. Spells LOVE for Kids and Families in Arkansas

March 16, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

Many people in our state work at low-paying jobs. Arkansans who work hard for little money pay a much higher share of their income to state and local taxes compared to the wealthiest. That’s not the way it should be. Fortunately, there is a great option for Arkansas (just ask the 29 other states that are already using it!) that can help turn things around for working families. That option is a state-level Earned Income Tax Credit (or EITC). At Arkansas Advocates for Children and families, we are so in love with the Earned Income Tax Credit that we decided to sing about it.

A range of tax bills are still in the pipeline at the General Assembly after lawmakers already approved a sweeping package of income tax cuts. Georgia’s 2018 General Assembly advanced 11 pieces of tax legislation by the Feb. 28 Crossover Day milestone that affect state revenues if approved by the House, Senate and the governor. […]

If you live in a high-wealth and high-tax state like New Jersey, the news gets worse. For the first time in 100 years, taxpayers may no longer deduct their full state and local taxes (“SALT” for short) from the income on which federal taxes are owed. The deductible ceiling is set at $10,000, so if you pay more than that with property and income taxes combined, your taxable income will increase by a bit.

Boston Globe: The Tax Act Will Make It Tougher for Cities to Pay Their Bills

March 11, 2018

Roughly 80 percent of Massachusetts residents will see their tax bills shrink next year, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Read more

CNN.com: Washington, Save Partisan Fighting for Actual Partisan Issues

March 10, 2018

DACA-eligible immigrants pay $2 billion each year in state and local taxes, according to a report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. One study indicates that 97% of DACA recipients are in school or employed. Read more

And Georgia immigrants contribute significant state and local tax revenue, including $352 million a year by undocumented immigrants as a whole and $66 million by Dreamers in particular. Read more here

On March 1, Gov. Paul LePage’s Administration presented a tax bill to the Legislature designed to mirror at the state level some of the reforms enacted by passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act at the federal level. The proposal is framed as simple conformity with federal law but goes much further than routine […]

Governor Kim Reynolds’ tax proposal trades massive cuts in public services for small savings for lower-income taxpayers, larger savings for high-income taxpayers and few meaningful strides toward fairness in a system that already treats the poor poorly and raises too little revenue to avoid mid-year cuts.

To help explain what the Act will mean for Rhode Island, the Economic Progress Institute released a paper entitled "Changes in federal tax law will cut taxes for many Rhode Islanders; wealthiest families and corporations benefit the most."

The Fiscal Times: How States Are Responding to the GOP Tax Overhaul

March 6, 2018

Concerned about the effects of the Republican tax overhaul on their local economies, some state legislatures are considering revamping their own tax systems to address everything from lost tax deductions to growing income inequality. Here’s a rundown some of those efforts, based on an analysis by the liberal-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy: Read […]

Louisiana Budget Project: On the Brink of Collapse

March 5, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

The backbiting and bitterness surrounding the revenue debate in Baton Rouge is wildly disproportionate to the effect on Louisiana families. As The Advocate’s Tyler Bridges reports, none of the tax bills would cost any Louisiana family more than 1 percent of their income per year. What’s really at stake in the tax debate – besides trying to fill a $1 billion hole in the budget – is whether to continue relying on a regressive sales tax, or if the burden should be shifted slightly to high-income taxpayers.

Atlanta Business Chronicle: General Assembly in Tax Cutting State of Mind

March 1, 2018

https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2018/03/01/general-assembly-in-tax-cutting-state-of-mind.html?ana=bbg

New Republic: Has Amazon Become Too Big to Tax

March 1, 2018

Earlier this week, Matthew Gardner of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy reported that Amazon, which recorded $5.6 billion in profits in 2017, paid zero in federal taxes, thanks to “various tax credits and tax breaks for executive stock options.” That’s remarkable in isolation, but especially remarkable when you consider that Donald Trump’s corporate tax bill […]

Fiscal Times: New Tax Bill Takes Aim at US Companies Moving Overseas

February 28, 2018

Critics of the GOP tax overhaul say it rewards U.S. companies for moving jobs and profits offshore and may actually encourage outsourcing compared to the old rules. The liberal Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that the new international provisions will cost the Treasury an additional $14 billion in lost revenue over the next […]

Politico Morning Tax: Amazon/taxes

February 28, 2018

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy’s finding that Amazon won’t pay any federal taxes for 2017 gets picked up back in Seattle. Read more

A state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), like the recently proposed Missouri Working Families Credit, could benefit as many as 515,000 working families with modest wages, providing hardworking families the ability to achieve a better future and a pathway to the middle class. By making the credit refundable, like the federal EITC and most other […]

The top 1 percent of North Carolinians are getting about $21,780 in average tax breaks per year — 59 times the average break for people in the middle fifth of the income scale and 1,361 times the average break for people in the lowest fifth, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found in its analysis of the 2013 tax changes.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Amazon Paid No U.S. Income Tax

February 27, 2018

Matthew Gardner, senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, wrote about Amazon’s tax bill that won’t come due in a Feb. 13 blog post. Without being privy to the company’s tax return, no one can say exactly how CEO Jeff Bezos and Co. avoided what could have been more than $1.3 billion […]

Associated Press: GOP Tax Law Boosts Income Taxes, Budgets in Some States

February 26, 2018

The Republican tax overhaul is giving most Americans a break on their federal income taxes. But fallout from the same law means many people could actually see their state income taxes rise.  For some state governments, the prospect of getting more revenue without actively raising taxes is almost too good to be true, but it also […]