Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

ITEP Work in Action

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: States Can Fight Corporate Tax Avoidance by Requiring Worldwide Combined Reporting

April 1, 2024

To reduce their federal corporate income taxes, every year large multinational corporations shift hundreds of billions of dollars in profits earned in the United States onto the books of subsidiaries formed in foreign tax havens like Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and Ireland. Because nearly all state corporate taxes are based on the taxable profits a corporation reports on its federal return, each year states lose at least $10 billion — and perhaps as much as $15 billion — of revenue due to this profit-shifting, estimates suggest. This is substantial revenue states could be using to provide K-12 teachers with better…

Open Sky Policy Institute: Why Proposed Tax Shift is Wrong for Nebraska

April 1, 2024

The tax package designed to lower property taxes paid to local political subdivisions would increase the tax burden on low- and middle-income working families and make it increasingly difficult for cities, counties and schools to provide the services that Nebraskans expect.

Open Sky Policy Institute: How the Tax Package Impacts Nebraskans

April 1, 2024

The proposal to lower property taxes paid to fund local government services will reduce property taxes paid by property owners, but it’s important to understand how the package that raises the state sales tax rate impacts all consumers and the effect of plans to “front load” the existing tax credit for taxes paid to public schools.

Montana Budget & Policy Center: The Great Tax Shift

March 20, 2024

The taxes paid by Montana residents and businesses have created and continue to fund an equitable educational system, roads and bridges, and services that keep our communities safe. Unfortunately, over time, responsibility for our tax system has shifted to everyday Montanans, like our teachers, plumbers, and construction workers, and away from the wealthy. Over the […]

The Volcker Alliance: State Tax Cuts After the Pandemic

March 18, 2024

The Issue Paper by Can Chen and Alex Hathaway, State Tax Cuts After the Pandemic: Strategies to Sustain Fiscal Health, is the latest in a series of Alliance issue papers on state and local budgeting in the COVID Era. Following the unprecedented federal aid issued to offset the impact of COVID-19, state revenues and cash reserves reached […]

Vermont Lt. Gov David Zuckerman: Fair Share

March 14, 2024

Today, I have an exceptionally important topic to talk about: taxes! Taxes have become a dirty word, and in many ways for good reason. Since the 1980’s there has been a significant shift in how much everyday people pay in taxes. Wealthy and high-income individuals have seen their marginal tax rates drop precipitously, while working […]

Video: Sen. Warren Slams Republicans Pushing Corporate Handouts While Fighting Child Tax Credit Expansion

March 13, 2024

Senator Warren’s exchange at a March 12, 2024 Senate Finance Committee hearing entitled: American Made: Growing U.S. Manufacturing Through the Tax Code

Institute for Policy Studies: More for Them, Less for Us

March 13, 2024

Corporate tax dodging and executive pay packages have both gotten so far out of control that a significant number of major U.S. corporations are paying their top executives more than they’re paying Uncle Sam in federal income taxes.

Maine Center for Economic Policy: The Case for Corporate Transparency

March 13, 2024

Mainers work hard to support themselves and their communities. They pay taxes to fund the services communities need to thrive, like education, health care, and infrastructure. But it is increasingly clear that big corporations aren’t holding up their end of the bargain by contributing their fair share. They deploy complicated tax loopholes and accounting schemes to avoid paying what they owe, using their money and power to ensure laws in place don’t expose the tricks they’re playing.

ITEP’s Marco Guzman Testifies in Favor of Tax Fairness Bills in Connecticut

March 11, 2024

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. 

The White House Fact Sheet: President Biden Is Fighting to Reduce the Deficit, Cut Taxes for Working Families, and Invest in America by Making Big Corporations and the Wealthy Pay Their Fair Share

March 7, 2024

President Biden is fighting to make the tax system fairer while Republicans continue to push tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations. The President’s plan delivers tax cuts for families with children and working Americans, invests in America, and reduces deficits by trillions of dollars by enacting a new billionaire minimum tax and cracking […]

Common Good Iowa: Killing Democracy by Superminority

March 6, 2024

Iowa’s tax structure has long favored the wealthiest Iowans and corporations, and tax cuts passed in 2022 are making inequities worse. The average millionaire will see a cut of $62,000 a year. In the middle, Iowans earning $40,000 to $60,000 will see an average cut of $300, or about $6 a week. Most with incomes under $40,000 will see no cut at all. 

ITEP’s Kamolika Das Testifies on Pennsylvania’s Upside-Down Tax Code

March 4, 2024

Below is written testimony delivered by ITEP Local Policy Director Kamolika Das before the Pennsylvania House Finance Subcommittee on Tax Modernization & Reform on March 1, 2024. Good afternoon and thank you for this opportunity to testify. My name is Kamolika Das, I live in South Philly, and I’m the Local Tax Policy Director at […]

Colorado Department of Revenue: Property Tax Circuit Breaker Programs

March 4, 2024

Because property taxes are based upon property values, they are not as strongly connected to an ability to pay as the income tax. This can be particularly burdensome when income changes as a result of job loss, divorce, illness, or retirement. As a result, property taxes tend to be regressive. 

Massachusetts Budget & Policy Center: Ending the Tax Penalty Against Working Immigrants

March 4, 2024

In recent years, lawmakers have enacted some important legislation helping Massachusetts residents, regardless of their immigration status, to take full part in commerce and civic life. Laws providing access to drivers’ licenses and in-state tuition, for instance, have opened opportunities that support employment and advance economic growth. Yet tens of thousands of workers, and their families, who pay taxes in Massachusetts are prevented from receiving the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) because they are ineligible for a Social Security Number. Extending eligibility to all workers filing taxes, regardless of their immigration status, would increase the impact of Massachusetts’ EITC, help…

Movement for Black Lives (M4BL): Economic Justice

February 27, 2024

We demand economic justice for all and a reconstruction of the economy to ensure Black communities have collective ownership, not merely access.

Better Wyoming: Somehow, Some Way, Wyoming Property Tax Relief is Coming

February 14, 2024

Buying a home is a goal for most hard-working Wyoming families, and achieving it is a cause to celebrate. But many homeowners in recent years have opened their annual property tax bills and been jolted by huge increases. In fact, residential property tax bills in Wyoming have gone up by an average of more than 80 percent over the past six years.

Common Good Iowa: Both Governor’s, Senate Plans Worsen Tax Inequalities

February 12, 2024

Iowans have traditionally valued expanding opportunity, caring for neighbors and a strong sense of fair play. Tax-cut proposals at the Iowa Statehouse from Governor Kim Reynolds and legislative leaders turn these Iowa values upside down. They would drastically restrict revenue needed to fund critical services such as education, health care, public safety and environmental quality. The Senate bill, SSB 3141, would set out to fully eliminate the income tax, which until recently has funded roughly half of the state budget. By targeting benefits to the wealthiest Iowans, the plans would throw an already inequitable tax system further out of balance.

Oklahoma Policy Institute: Economic Projections for Asylum Seekers and New Immigrants in Oklahoma

February 12, 2024

Immigration is hardly a new social trend in the state of Oklahoma. Of the four million people living in the state, 243,000 are immigrants, or six percent of the total population, according to the 2022 American Community Survey.

Audio: ITEP’s Miles Trinidad Talks About Oregon’s Upside-Down Tax Code

February 12, 2024

We’re talking taxes today on Policy for the People, specifically from the vantage point of the Oregonians with the fewest resources, those who are struggling the most to make ends meet. In our first segment, we hear about a brand new tax credit in Oregon designed to shore up the lowest-income families with young children in our state. Tyler Mac Innis of the Oregon Center for Public Policy explains who qualifies for the Oregon Kids’ Credit and why the creation of this new tax credit is a very good thing. But despite the positive development that the Oregon Kids’ Credit…

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: High-Income People Who Received Large Net Tax Cuts in 2017 Law Don’t Need a New SALT Tax Cut

February 7, 2024

The House is poised to consider a new tax bill that would raise the cap on deductions for state and local taxes (SALT), giving another large tax cut to the same group of rich people who benefitted the most as a share of their incomes from the 2017 tax law. Over half of the benefits would go to those in the 95th to 99th percentiles for income — the biggest winners of the 2017 tax law — according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). This group doesn’t need another tax cut, and policymakers should reject the bill.

New Mexico Voices for Children: New Mexico has the Most-Improved Tax Fairness of Any State

February 7, 2024

New Mexico now has the ninth most progressive tax system in the nation as ranked by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy’s recently updated Who Pays? report on tax incidence. That same report showed New Mexico as making the most progress toward tax fairness in the nation!

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: Vermont Can Invest in Brighter Future With Targeted Income Tax Measure

February 6, 2024

According to estimates from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), the proposal would fall almost exclusively on the state’s richest 1 percent of households, or those with average incomes of about $1.8 million a year.[2] The remainder of the state’s residents — who to be clear, already themselves contribute significant shares of revenue through existing taxes on income, sales, and property[3] — would see no change.

Video: ITEP’s Carl Davis Discusses ‘Who Pays?’ at Rhode Island Revenue Roundtable

February 5, 2024

ITEP researcher Carl Davis joins the Economic Progress Institute (EPI) for Rhode Island's Revenue Roundtable.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro: Fact Sheets on Tax Deal

January 30, 2024

“The tax deal fails on equity,” said Congresswoman DeLauro. “It delivers huge tax cuts for giant corporations while denying middle class families the economic security they had under the expanded, monthly Child Tax Credit.  It also leaves the poorest families behind because of a policy choice. At a time when a majority of American voters believe tax on big corporations should be increased, there is no reason we should be providing corporations a tax cut while only giving families pennies.”

Advocates and policymakers at the state and federal levels rely on ITEP’s analytic capabilities to inform their debates on proposed tax policy changes. In any given year, ITEP fields requests for analyses of policies in 25 or more states. ITEP also works with national partners to provide analyses of federal tax policy proposals. This section highlights reports that use ITEP analyses to make a compelling case for progressive tax reforms.