A comprehensive examination of Fortune 500 companies’ financial filings in 2018, the first year of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, finds that the law did nothing to curb corporate tax avoidance, with 91 companies paying $0 in taxes on U.S. income in 2018 and profitable companies overall paying a collective effective tax rate of 11.3 percent, which is barely more than half the 21 percent rate established by the tax law, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) said today.
News Releases
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news release December 16, 2019 Fortune 500 Companies Avoided $73.9 Billion in Tax Under First Year of Trump Tax Law
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news release November 5, 2019 Amy Hanauer Appointed as Executive Director of ITEP-CTJ
Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) and Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) Boards of Directors announced today the appointment of Amy Hanauer as Executive Director to lead the organizations’ tax justice work. Hanauer, founder of Policy Matters Ohio, will assume responsibilities mid-January 2020, joined by long-time ITEP-CTJ team member Meg Wiehe in her expanded role as Deputy Executive Director. Together the pair will lead the organizations in transforming tax policies to better meet the country’s needs.
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news release September 12, 2019 Senator Releases Plan That Would Increase Capital Gains Tax Rates, Close Loopholes
Following is a statement from Alan Essig, executive director for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, on the paper released today by the Senate Finance Committee’s ranking Democrat, Ron Wyden, calling for anti-deferral accounting, which could dramatically reform the way the U.S. taxes capital gains.
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news release September 12, 2019 New Report: A Chicago EITC Would Benefit up to 1 Million Chicago Families
Media contact Report outlines policy options for Chicago Resilient Families Initiative Task Force Recommendations A new report reveals that a city-level, Chicago Earned Income Tax Credit would boost the economic security… -
news release August 7, 2019 Leadership Transition Announcement
Notes from Alan Essig, Executive Director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and Citizens for Tax Justice, and Joan Entmacher, Board Chair of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, and Ed Jayne, Board Chair of Citizens for Tax Justice, announcing leadership transition.
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news release July 17, 2019 Sales Tax Holidays Are Outdated Gimmicks That Have Run Their Course
Just as the very first sales tax holiday for car sales did not fix the auto industry’s challenges, providing consumers a temporary reprieve on sales tax will not address families’ pocketbook concerns.
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news release June 27, 2019 Travelers in 12 States Will Pay More in Gas Taxes Beginning Monday
Drivers in 12 states who hit the road during this summer driving season will be paying more in gas tax beginning Monday, July 1.
While the federal gas tax has remained stagnant for nearly 26 years, many states have stepped up and increased their taxes so they can raise revenue to fund infrastructure and other projects. California, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee and Vermont all will raise their gas taxes.
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news release June 11, 2019 Treasury Regulations Address Long-Standing Tax Loophole
Following is a statement by Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, regarding Department of Treasury regulations released today to address state policies that allow… -
news release May 22, 2019 Five Recent Federal Tax Credit Proposals Target Benefits to Bottom 60 Percent of Taxpayers
Five tax proposals announced this year are a radical departure from the top-heavy 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, targeting their benefits instead to low- and moderate income families while providing no or nominal tax cuts to the highest-earning households, a new Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy analysis of each of the five plans reveals.
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news release April 17, 2019 New 50-State Analysis: State Child Tax Credits Would Lift 2.1 to 4.5 Million Children out of Poverty
Expanding the Child Tax Credit (CTC) at the state level could lift millions of children out of poverty and help families who benefited little or not at all from the 2017 federal expansion of the CTC, according to a 50-state report released today by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University.
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news release April 11, 2019 60 Fortune 500 Companies Avoided All Federal Income Tax in 2018 Under New Tax Law
Media Contact An in-depth analysis of Fortune 500 companies’ financial filings finds that at least 60 of the nation’s biggest corporations didn’t pay a dime in federal income taxes in… -
news release March 11, 2019 White House Budget Fails to Acknowledge Role of Tax Cuts in the Deficit while Calling for Draconian Spending Cuts
As expected, the president’s budget would enshrine top-heavy tax cuts into law and finance them by slashing domestic programs. It is time for a course correction.
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news release March 7, 2019 Gov. Pritzker’s Tax Proposal Is a Huge Step Toward Fairer Taxes
Gov. Pritzker’s Fair Tax proposal reflects a necessary and strong commitment to reforming Illinois’s tax system in a fair way that will help the state raise the revenue it needs to stabilize its finances and improve quality of life for all its residents. The state’s financial crisis spans several years and getting the state back on firm fiscal footing requires bold solutions and—yes—tax increases.
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news release February 28, 2019 Education Department Tax Credit Proposal Would Undermine Public Schools
The Education Department today announced a proposed new federal tax credit for so-called school choice. The $5 billion proposal would give those who donate to private school voucher programs a tax credit. Following is a statement by Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
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news release February 5, 2019 New Report Outlines Seven Progressive Revenue-Raising Options
ITEP today released a report that charts a path for Congress to enact progressive, revenue-raising tax policies that would target high-income households and reverse the damage from TCJA and prior rounds of tax cuts that disproportionately benefited the well-off.
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news release January 23, 2019 New Report Makes the Case for a Wealth Tax; Analysis Finds Such a Tax Could Raise More Than $1 Trillion Over a Decade
A federal wealth tax on the top 0.1 percent of households could raise significant tax revenue, curb growing economic inequality and help make the tax system fairer, a new report released today by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) finds.
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news release January 23, 2019 Five Years in, Cannabis Tax Haul Rivals or Exceeds Alcohol Taxes in Many States
A first-of-its-kind look at state excise taxes on legal cannabis sales finds that taxing the substance can be a meaningful source of state revenue but cautions that achieving sustainable revenues over time will be difficult under the price-based tax structures adopted in most states thus far.
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news release January 15, 2019 Gov. Cuomo Has the Right Idea on How to Tax Recreational Cannabis
Following is a statement by Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, regarding the cannabis tax structure unveiled by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
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news release December 6, 2018 2017 Tax Law Leaves More Wealthy Heirs with Tax-Free Inheritances
Media contact A tiny fraction of estates will be subject to the tax in 2018 The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act drastically reduced the number of estates that are subject… -
news release November 14, 2018 New 50-State Analysis: SALT Cap Repeal Would Be Costly, Mostly Benefit Top 1%
Repealing the 2017 tax law’s cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions without replacing it with a different type of limit would pile one bad policy on top of the other, annually add $88 billion to the deficit-financed tax law, and mostly benefit the wealthy, a new 50-state analysis released today by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy reveals.
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news release October 17, 2018 Poorest 20 Percent Pays a 50 Percent Higher Effective State and Local Tax Rate than the Top 1 Percent
A comprehensive 50-state study released today by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) finds that most state and local tax systems tax low- and middle-income households at significantly higher rates than wealthy taxpayers, with the lowest-income households paying an average of 50 percent more of their income in taxes than the very rich.
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news release October 2, 2018 NYT Expose on Trump Family Tax Avoidance Demonstrates There’s a Different Set of Rules for the Rich and Powerful
Following is a statement by Alan Essig, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, regarding an expose in today’s New York Times that reveals Donald Trump’s family engaged in complex schemes to avoid taxes.
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news release September 28, 2018 U.S. House Advances More Unpopular Tax Cuts That Primarily Benefit the Wealthy
The U.S. House this week voted on so-called Tax Cuts 2.0, a package of three tax bills that, among other things, would make permanent temporary provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Alan Essig, ITEP’s executive director, said the following: “While top-heavy tax cuts and their inevitable effect of decimating public investments may seem peripheral to today’s news cycle, they are emblematic of the governing philosophy of those in power today.”
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news release September 10, 2018 More of the Same: Tax Cuts 2.0 Will Benefit the Rich
Media Contact Following is a statement from Alan Essig, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, regarding the tax bill introduced today by House GOP leadership. “Once… -
news release August 23, 2018 Proposed IRS Regulations Would End SALT Workarounds and Rightly Tamp Down on School Voucher Tax Shelters
The main difference between states that recently passed SALT workaround legislation and states that provide overly generous credits for donations to private schools are their political leanings. Private school supporters were hoping for a special carve out that would allow their tax shelter to remain intact, but the IRS was correct not to pick winners and losers.