States and cities have been throwing darts at the wall, trying to find dedicated funding to tackle affordable housing needs. Nationwide, tens of millions of families are struggling amid a housing shortage with rent and housing costs. Home prices are up about 60% over the past decade, adjusted for inflation. And about a quarter of renters—some 12 million households—spend more than half their income on housing, which is far above the recommended 30%. To support affordable housing development and other initiatives in the rapidly growing Denver area, Mayor Mike Johnston on Monday unveiled a proposed new tax that would add 0.5% atop Denver’s current effective 8.81% sales tax rate. The tax is estimated to bring in $100 million a year in proceeds for the efforts.
Select Media Mentions
Members of the media rely on ITEP for analysis and insight about how tax policies affect people. If you’re a reporter looking to talk to one of our experts, contact Jon Whiten at [email protected].
-
media mention July 15, 2024 Route 50: States, Cities Consider ‘Mansion Taxes’ to Fund Affordable Housing
-
media mention July 11, 2024 Nonprofit Quarterly: Can Taxes Reduce Inequality? What a Study of State and Local Taxes Tells Us
Who pays? Along with its companion question of “who benefits,” “who pays” has long been a central concern of both politics and economics. Earlier this year, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) published Who Pays: A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States, its seventh study on the topic since 1996 and its first since 2018.
-
media mention July 10, 2024 The 19th News: Republicans Want to Kill the Dept. of Ed and Privatize Education. Billionaires Are Helping Them.
In the fall, the Department of Education will mark 45 years since its inception, but that anniversary could be its last if Donald Trump gets his way. The federal agency is one of several he’s vowed to slash if reelected president.
-
media mention July 10, 2024 Education Week: A State Considers a Future in Which Schools Can’t Rely on Property Taxes
What would a world without property taxes look like? In every state, revenue from property taxes is one of the biggest sources of K-12 school funding. But that could change soon as efforts ramp up in a handful of states to abandon property taxes altogether, or at least as a funding source for schools.
-
media mention July 3, 2024 Connecticut Mirror: Could CT Fight Homelessness With a ‘Mansion Tax’? Yes, Report Says
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.
-
media mention July 3, 2024 The Globalist: Will American Monetocracy Ever Come to an End?
It used to be that the United States prided itself on being a meritocracy. No more. It is increasingly a country with a cult of money and rule by moneyed elites. Not so much an oligarchy as a monetocracy.
-
media mention June 27, 2024 New York Times: Newsom Uses Annual State Address to Confront Republicans Across the Nation
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, whose liberal state has been hammered by Republicans for months as a hellscape of homelessness, crime and high taxes, used his annual State of the State address on Tuesday to slam “conservatives and delusional California bashers” and defend “the California way of life.”
-
media mention June 26, 2024 Sacramento Bee: Governor Gavin Newsom Claims California Is Not a ‘High-Tax State.’ Is He Correct?
“Here’s the truth Republicans never tell you: California is not a high tax state,” Gov. Gavin Newsom declared Tuesday in his taped State of the State address.
-
media mention June 26, 2024 Education Week: Some Districts Charge for School Bus Rides—If They Offer Transportation at All
A small but notable share of the nation’s 13,000 public school districts charge fees for some or all of their students to ride the bus each day—if they provide transportation at all. States vary on the degree to which they require schools to offer bus service to all students who want it. They also differ widely on how much money they provide to schools to cover the growing costs of transportation.
-
media mention June 21, 2024 New York Times: Democrats’ Dream of a Wealth Tax Is Alive. For Now.
For years, liberal Democrats have agitated for the United States to tax wealth, not just income, as a way to ensure that rich Americans who derive wealth from real estate, stocks, bonds and other assets were paying more in taxes. On Thursday, that dream survived a Supreme Court scare, but just barely.
-
media mention June 21, 2024 Forbes: Supreme Court Refuses to Upend the Tax Code in Ruling on Unrealized Gains
The Supreme Court declined to overturn a tax policy Thursday that critics warned could have had broad implications on federal tax policy and the U.S. economy, ruling against a couple who claimed they should not have been taxed on money they invested but hadn’t made a profit on.
-
media mention June 20, 2024 Pluribus News: The Volatility of Taxing the Rich
State leaders in Massachusetts and Washington are learning it’s hard to predict how much money their taxes on millionaires and billionaires will rake in.
-
media mention June 18, 2024 Marketplace: Closing a $50 Billion Tax Loophole for the Wealthy
The Treasury and IRS announced a new initiative Monday to close a tax loophole for wealthy people that could raise more than $50 billion in revenue over the next decade. Plus, the evolving economics of “gayborhoods” in U.S. cities.
-
media mention June 18, 2024 NPR: Kansas Lawmakers Will Consider Tax Cuts During Their Special Session
Kansas’ Republican-led Legislature is pushing for tax cuts. But critics worry about repeating the failed tax cuts from 2012 that blew holes in the state’s budgets for years.
-
media mention June 14, 2024 The American Prospect: Taming the Price Beast
A February paper from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy that studied 342 profitable corporations found that these companies paid an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent, well below the historically low statutory rate of 21 percent signed into law by the Trump administration in 2017. At the same time, we have seen record corporate profits since 2021, culminating in an all-time high in the fourth quarter of 2023. Companies seek out excess profits in increasingly harmful ways, because they get to keep more of those excess profits.
-
media mention June 13, 2024 The Guardian: ‘Perilous for Democracy, Good for Profits’: Is Big Business Ready to Love Trump Again?
Chief executives of some of America’s largest companies will meet privately with Donald Trump later on Thursday, and many CEOs who were once critical of his unprecedented conduct appear increasingly open to the former president’s return to office, a Guardian analysis has found.
-
media mention June 11, 2024 Yahoo Finance: 7 Places Your Taxes Will Go if Trump Wins in 2024
If you are subject to estate taxes under a second Trump term, you can expect to keep paying the historically low rate he set in motion during his first term. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, only eight of every 10,000 people who died left an estate large enough to trigger the tax as of 2019, the most recent year data are available. Most of the estate tax is paid by estates worth more than $20 million, and in recent years the majority has been paid by estates worth more than $50 million.
-
media mention June 6, 2024 Capital & Main: The Return of Trickle-Down Economics
The return of trickle-down economics — the much-criticized theory that tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy eventually result in job growth and higher wages for the middle class and working class — has inspired a fierce debate in the Kansas Legislature that has gone on for months. A bill that included a flat 5.25% personal income tax, an 8% reduction from the current rate for top earners, was approved by Republicans in both chambers, though critics say it would disproportionately benefit the wealthy in the state. The top 20% of earners in Kansas — those with average annual incomes above $315,000 — would get nearly 40% of the benefits, with Koch himself receiving an estimated $485,000 in annual tax breaks under the proposal, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonpartisan research group that favors a progressive tax system. It would also cost the state almost $650 million every year once fully implemented, per ITEP.
-
media mention May 28, 2024 Governing: Are Florida Taxes Low? It Depends on Your Income Level
It’s been almost a hundred years since Florida eliminated its personal income tax. Not taxing income contributes to its reputation as a low-tax state and is part of the draw for retirees. But of course Floridians do pay taxes and the state’s system leads to some inequities, according to a new report from a progressive organization.
-
media mention May 20, 2024 Yahoo Finance: Jeff Bezos Spent $237 Million On Florida Mansions — Billionaires Flock To ‘Upside Down’ Tax Haven Where Rich Pay Less Than Poor
The Sunshine State has become a magnet for billionaires seeking tax relief. Among the latest to join the trend is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who has recently expanded his real estate holdings in Miami’s exclusive Billionaire Bunker area. Bezos’ acquisitions include three properties, bringing his total investment in the neighborhood to $237 million.
-
media mention May 17, 2024 Forbes: California Is Not Actually a High-Tax State According To New Study
Depending on where you fall on the income scale, California may not actually be that high tax of a state. For many in the middle class and below, California may let you keep more of your hard-earned income than many other states, according to a new study, “Who Pays” from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). While California has the highest marginal tax rate in the nation at 13.3%, only some households pay this rate on their income. That doesn’t stop so-called low-tax states like Texas and Florida from blasting the tax policy of the Golden State.
-
media mention May 16, 2024 Hawai’i Public Radio: Concerns Rise for Low-Income Families Over Legislature’s Recent Tax Cut Measure
Most Hawaiʻi residents will likely see lower income taxes next year due to a measure recently passed by the state Legislature. However, some advocates are concerned that those changes could also limit tax assistance for those who need it the most. Lawmakers are calling it the biggest tax cut in the state’s history: about $5 billion over the next five years.
-
media mention May 13, 2024 WTAE: Commitment 2024: Fact-checking Former President Trump’s Claims in Interview
PITTSBURGH — During an interview with WTAE’s sister station WGAL, former President Donald Trump made claims of getting record-breaking votes in Pennsylvania’s 2024 primary, about the future of abortion in the courts, and concerning who benefited most from his tax cuts.
-
media mention May 9, 2024 Mansion Global: Massachusetts Weighs Mansion Tax on $1 Million-Plus Homes
Massachusetts could join the growing number of cities and states with a mansion tax on high-value properties, as it considers a proposal to levy an additional transfer fee on commercial… -
media mention May 1, 2024 USA Today: Are California’s Taxes Really That High? Not If You’re of ‘Modest Means,’ Report Says
Whether it be that all Californians surf, live by the beach or only vote blue, there are a lot of assumptions about residents of the Golden State. Yet a new…