News Releases

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.

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.

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.

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 taxpayers to receive overly generous tax credits for charitable deductions. “This regulation rightly addresses a long-standing tax loophole that gave high-income taxpayers one more way […]

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.

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.

91 corporations did not pay federal income taxes on their 2018 U.S. income. Read the follow-up report released in December 2019, Corporate Tax Avoidance in the First Year of the Trump 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 […]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 to the estate tax, which is an incredible feat given only a fraction of 1 percent of estates owed any tax in recent years, the […]

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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 again, lawmakers are attempting to force tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy on an unwilling public. Nearly nine months after the tax law passed, […]

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.

Media Contact Rep. Kevin Brady, the top tax-writer in the House of Representatives, today called on his colleagues to make permanent the temporary provisions that were enacted as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). These provisions, which will otherwise expire at the end of 2025, mostly benefit the richest households. As illustrated […]

The lack of investment in public school systems is a problem in jurisdictions throughout the country. So, at this time of year when many states across the country are temporarily suspending sales taxes to provide a break to taxpayers who have to purchase back-to-school supplies, it’s worth examining whether this is the most effective use of resources.

Since 2000, Congress has passed several rounds of tax cuts that have increased the federal deficit by nearly $6 trillion and disproportionately benefited the top 20 percent of households, which received nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of the value of all tax changes.

Following is a statement by Steve Wamhoff, the director of federal tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, regarding the report released today by Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee addressing tax breaks for real estate developers in the new tax law. “The conclusion of this report should surprise […]