Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP)

Citations

ITEP's Citations Research Priorities

West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy: House Income Tax Plan Benefits Wealthy and Could Punch Large Holes in State Budget

March 2, 2020 • By ITEP Staff

Once the fund reaches “an amount equal to or exceeding 2.5 times the total net reduction in personal income tax revenue collections that would have been received in that fiscal year if the income tax rates for that fiscal year had been reduced by 0.25 percent” it triggers a reduction in the state’s personal income […]

Chicago Resilient Families Task Force: EITC Expansion and Modernization

February 28, 2020 • By ITEP Staff

Expanding and modernizing the Earned Income Tax Credit will put more money back in the pockets of the people who need it most. Recent polling suggests such policies would be popular, with 70% of respondents supporting a modernized EITC statewide and 80% supporting such an effort in Chicago. Read more

MSNBC: Team Trump wants even more corporate tax breaks in a second term

February 28, 2020

For another, corporations clearly don’t need a lower rate since so many of them aren’t even paying taxes at the current rate. Late last year, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy released the results of a detailed study that found of the Fortune 500 companies, about 400 paid an average tax rate of about […]

The Chicago Tribune: Recreational marijuana sales in Illinois generated more than $10 million in tax revenue in January

February 25, 2020

Many dispensaries continue to sell recreational marijuana only on certain days of the week or for restricted hours. Though greater volumes of product continue to filter into the market from Illinois growers, the statewide shortage is expected to last for a year or more. Facilities that grow weed are expanding, and dozens of dispensaries are […]

The Hill: Financial trade tax gains traction with 2020 Democrats

February 25, 2020

Democratic presidential candidates across the ideological spectrum are calling for taxes on financial trades, breathing new life into an idea that for many years was promoted primarily in progressive circles. “It’s moving more into the mainstream,” said Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Read more

Anchorage Press: The Pocketbook Reasons Most Alaskans Should Prefer an Income Tax to a Statewide Sales Tax

February 24, 2020

An analysis in 2017 by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) produced similar results. All people in households who make less than $73,000 per year—and some in higher-earning households—would do better financially under a state income tax than a statewide sales tax, according to this study. A statewide sales tax would hit both […]

Commonwealth Institute: State Funding Proposals Include Regressive Tax Increases – Many without Offsets

February 21, 2020 • By ITEP Staff

Although many significant state (Virginia) tax policy bills filed for this year did not move beyond the committee level, several proposals remain under consideration. A large transportation funding package (HB 1414 and SB 890) and several standalone regional transportation funding bills have advanced from their respective chambers in the Virginia General Assembly. In addition, proposed […]

Hawai’i Budget and Policy Center: Hawai’i’s Earned Income Tax Credit: Next Steps

February 20, 2020 • By ITEP Staff

In 2017, Hawaiʻi passed legislation to create a state EITC.11 The new law allowed qualified taxpayers to claim a state tax credit beginning in 2018. The state tax credit amounts to 20 percent of the federal EITC but, unlike its federal counterpart, Hawaiʻi’s tax credit is not refundable. That is, if the filer owes less […]

MarketWatch: Jeff Bezos spent more on this house in Beverly Hills than Amazon has paid so far in federal corporate income tax for 2019

February 20, 2020

Amazon listed a “summary” of its 2019 U.S. taxes as including $2.4 billion in other federal taxes, including payroll taxes and customs duties, and more than $1.6 billion in state and local taxes. The company also noted that it remitted nearly $9 billion in sales and use taxes to states and localities in accordance with […]

Washington Post: White House advisers privately float minimum tax on corporations amid blowback over 2017 GOP law

February 20, 2020

Opponents of the tax law such as presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have assailed the GOP and multibillion-dollar corporations for allegedly paying $0 in federal taxes under the new law. Ninety-one companies on the Fortune 500 paid $0 in federal corporate taxes in 2018, more than double the amount in previous years, according to […]

Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Tax reform may be more lucrative than advertised for corporations

February 20, 2020

Many of Minnesota’s major corporations paid lower tax rates in 2018 than new, dramatically lower corporate tax rates. That was among the findings in an analysis of government filings by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). ITEP, a nonprofit that gathers data to show how “taxes affect public revenue and people of various […]

Factcheck.org: FactChecking the Las Vegas Democratic Debate

February 20, 2020

There were indeed reports last year, prompted by the findings of the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, indicating that the two companies and others paid no federal income taxes in 2018. The ITEP more recently noted, based on a Securities and Exchange Commission filing for 2019, that Amazon “paid $162 million of federal income taxes, a bit more than […]

West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy: Senate Tax Plan a Bad Deal for West Virginia

February 19, 2020 • By ITEP Staff

Senate Republicans unveiled their latest proposal to eliminate the business personal property tax this week, passing the proposal out of the Senate Finance Committee. The plan, which builds upon an earlier proposal to eliminate the property tax on manufacturing equipment, machinery, and inventory, would blow a nearly $100 million hole in the state budget, introduce inconsistency in […]

Kentucky Center for Economic Policy: Tax Plan Would Fix Kentucky’s Budget Challenges by Addressing Upside Down Tax Code

February 13, 2020 • By ITEP Staff

Kentucky’s current tax system lets those with the greatest ability to pay taxes contribute the least as a share of their income. A study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows that low- and middle-income people pay between 9.5% and 11.1% of their income in total state and local taxes, while the top 1% pay […]

GBPI: Georgia Leaders Face Choice Between Tax Cuts for High Income Earners and Funding Key State Priorities

February 12, 2020 • By ITEP Staff

Twelve days into the 2020 session of the Georgia General Assembly, legislators voted to take a week-long break from regular business to allow extra time for deliberations over Georgia’s fiscal priorities and annual appropriations bills. State leaders continue to express concerns over Gov. Kemp’s executive budget proposals, which include the first mandatory agency budget cuts […]

Yahoo! Finance: In Search of the ‘Disappearing Corporate Income Tax’

February 12, 2020

Those losses, driven by generous rule-writing and interpretations of the 2017 tax law by the U.S. Treasury, are so substantial that they were deemed “tax cuts 2.0” by the liberal-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. (You can read more about the revision in a recent blog post from CBO director Phillip Swagel, and in […]

Maine Beacon: Report: Maine losing $52 million annually to corporations using offshore tax havens

February 10, 2020

The amount of money U.S. companies move through tax havens is considerable.  Fortune 500 companies made $2.6 trillion in offshore profits in 2016, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Read more

Politifact: Fact-checking the Democratic claim that Amazon doesn’t pay taxes

February 7, 2020

Short answer: Amazon’s tax returns are private, so we don’t know for sure what Amazon pays in federal taxes. But Amazon’s estimates on its annual 10-K filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission are the closest information we have on this matter. They show mixed results for the past three years: no federal income […]

CBSNews.com: Amazon paid a tax rate of just 1.2% last year, versus 14% for average Americans

February 7, 2020

Amazon isn’t alone, of course. Hundreds of U.S. companies now pay tax rates that are lower than those many Americans pay. A study late last year from the liberal Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that Fortune 500 companies pay an average tax rate of 11.3%. Read more

Yahoo! Finance: Amazon paid a 1.2% tax rate on $13,285,000,000 in profit for 2019

February 7, 2020

Matthew Gardner, senior fellow for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), who analyzes corporations and their tax avoidance, says there’s “no meaningful” connection between Amazon and many of the taxes it listed in its announcement. Instead, the company lists taxes it collects on behalf of the U.S. government, like payroll taxes and sales […]

The Sun: AMAZON’S DIME Amazon paid just ONE per cent tax after making $13BILLION profit leaving taxpayers with jus $162million

February 7, 2020

One expert found ‘no meaningful’ link between Amazon and the tax payments in the SEC filing. Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, wrote: “Economists agree that payroll taxes are ultimately paid by employees in the form of reduced compensation. “Like the sales tax, the payroll tax is one […]

Fox Business: Amazon paid tax rate of 1.2% on $13B in profits last year

February 7, 2020

“This means that instead of avoiding 100 percent of its income tax liability, Amazon appears to have avoided only 94 percent of its tax bill last year,” Matthew Gardner, senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, wrote in a blog post. Read more

The Daily Mail: Amazon paid only $162M in US federal taxes in 2019 after making $13BILLION in profit – an effective rate of just one per cent

February 7, 2020

Taxes collected on behalf of the government for payroll and from online sales from third-party vendors don’t count as taxes paid. The expert wrote in a post made for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy that ‘economists agree that payroll taxes are ultimately paid by employees in the form of reduced compensation.’ ‘Like the sales […]

Politico: Cloudy Forecast for Tax Law Fixes

February 6, 2020

DECOUPLING DEDUCTIONS: Two-thirds of states with property tax deductions set a $10,000 ceiling along the lines of the TCJA’s cap on federal deductions for state and local taxes, according to a new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning group that considers such deductions regressive. Many states tightly link their tax […]

International Business Times: Amazon Only Paid 1.2% Taxes In 2019 Despite $13 Billion Profit

February 6, 2020

Yahoo Finance, however, pointed that with the exception of the federal income tax, the listed amounts aren’t actually taxes Amazon paid to the federal government. There’s “no meaningful” connection between Amazon and many of the taxes it listed in its announcement, said Matthew Gardner, senior fellow for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) that […]