News Releases
Amazon Maintains Sales Tax Advantage over Local Businesses
March 26, 2018 • By ITEP Staff
This report concludes that lack of consistent sales tax collection is contributing to an unlevel playing field for local businesses “because millions of shoppers are able to pay less tax if they choose to buy from out-of-state companies over the Internet rather than at local stores.” It recommends that states explore reforms to bring their sales tax policies into the digital age.
Two Months after Top-Heavy Tax Cuts, Trump Budget Proposes “Savings” by Making Cuts to Safety Net Programs
February 12, 2018 • By Alan Essig
“In case it was not apparent after the White House pushed for a tax plan that overwhelmingly benefits corporations and the rich, the White House budget proposal is clear on what and whom it prioritizes: wealth over work, corporate interest before the public good.”
Congress Snubs the Will of the People, Appeases Wealthy Donors
December 19, 2017 • By Alan Essig
The 2010 Citizens United decision shoved open already leaky floodgates that have allowed the well-heeled to dictate our nation’s electoral outcomes and public policies. Lawmakers have been clear that their ‘donors’ and ‘corporate CEOs’ are the driving force behind this tax overhaul, and they have been content to ignore opinion polling that indicates the public is against this legislation by a margin of 2-to-1.
ITEP 50-State Distributional Analysis of Final House-Senate Tax Bill
December 17, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
Like the initial House and Senate tax bills, the final tax legislation reserves the greatest share of the benefit for the wealthy and foreign investors and would hike taxes for average taxpayers in the lowest-earning three-fifths of households.
Corporations and the Rich Get Everything They Want in Pending Tax Bill, Working People, Not So Much
December 15, 2017 • By Alan Essig
Nearly 30 years ago, Trump was well connected enough that he was able to go to Congress and testify about how tax changes affected his business. Ordinary working people are rarely lucky enough to talk about their personal experiences in front of a congressional committee. So if they want to make their views known about the catastrophe of 2017, it will have to be in election of 2018.
ITEP Statement on Alabama’s Special Election
December 13, 2017 • By Alan Essig
What voters want—the people who put elected officials in office—matters. Members of Congress should take pause before proceeding with their profoundly unpopular tax bill that the vast majority of voters have said lawmakers should not pass.
Senate Okays Unpopular Plan to Widen Income Inequality, Make the Rich Richer
December 2, 2017 • By Alan Essig
But so far, Republican leaders have demonstrated that, for them, the only voices that matter in this debate are those that fund their campaigns.
New 50-State Analysis: Senate Tax Plan Would Increase Taxes on at Least 29 Percent by 2027
November 18, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
Poorest 20 percent would receive the biggest tax hike A 50-state analysis of the tax plan that passed the Senate Finance Committee finds that the bottom 60 percent of households overall would face a tax hike in the later years of the plan, while the richest 1 percent, corporations, and foreign investors would continue to […]
House Passes Tax Cuts for the Rich and Corporations as a False Cure for Working People’s Economic Anxiety
November 16, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
For months, Speaker Paul Ryan has cited working people’s “economic anxiety” as a reason to push through tax reform. While the speaker has correctly diagnosed a defining social issue of our time, he and other Republican leaders continue to focus on a top-down remedy that will only make this problem worse.
Senate Tax Plan Is a Conflagration That Attempts to Address Ideological Grievances
November 15, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
There are a few things that have been clear since this tax bill’s inception. It was never a plan to help the middle class. Now, the legislation being considered before the Senate Finance Committee is no longer a tax bill. It is an ACA repeal bill.
Senate Tax Plan Reserves Greatest Benefit for Richest Americans, Millions Face an Increase
November 13, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
A 50-state analysis of the Senate tax proposal finds that not only would greatest share of benefits go to the richest Americans, but also more than one in 10 taxpayers would face a tax hike, with a large number of those taxpayers residing in states where residents pay higher state and local taxes.
Senate Tax Plan Includes Some Changes but Maintains Focus on Tax Cuts for the Rich
November 9, 2017 • By Alan Essig
Following is a statement by Alan Essig, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, regarding the Senate tax plan released today. While it will take a complete analysis to determine how each income group is affected by the Senate’s proposal, an initial overview of the plan leads ITEP’s analysts to conclude that […]
New Analysis: Wealthy Will Receive a Growing Share of Tax Cuts in House Tax Plan Over Time
November 6, 2017 • By Alan Essig
A national and 50-state distributional analysis of the House tax plan released late last week reveals that not only would the wealthiest 1 percent receive the greatest share of the total tax cut in year one, but their share would grow over time due to phase-ins of tax cuts that mostly benefit the rich and the eventual elimination or erosion in value of provisions that benefit low- and middle-income taxpayers.
Paradise Papers Underscore Why Lawmakers Should Focus on Offshore Tax Avoidance
November 5, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
Following is a statement by Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, regarding the release of the “Paradise Papers,” a series of documents from Appleby, a leading offshore law firm. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists released the investigative report today.
Bottom-Line Conclusion about GOP Tax Plan Is the Same After Reviewing More Details
November 2, 2017 • By Alan Essig
Instead of engaging in thorough, public process that may have yielded real tax reform for middle-class families, lawmakers covertly put together a plan that reserves its biggest benefits for corporations and the wealthy while throwing in a few gimmicks for political cover.
Even if Top Marginal Tax Rate Remains 39.6%, GOP Tax Plan Will Still Largely Benefit the Wealthy
November 1, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
Keeping the top tax rate at 39.6 percent for millionaires is a cosmetic change meant to make this tax plan more palatable. Unless tax writers take out other provisions that almost exclusively benefit the highest-income households, millionaires will still benefit most.
States with Highest Income Tax Rates Economically Outperform States with No Income Tax
October 26, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
A comparative analysis of economic trends in the nine states that do not levy an income tax and the nine states that levy the highest top income tax rates found that the latter group performed significantly better on more than half a dozen measures of economic well-being, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy said […]
ITEP Statement on House Budget Resolution: Lawmakers Gear up to Give the Public What It Doesn’t Want
October 5, 2017 • By Alan Essig
Passing a budget is supposed to provide a structure for our elected officials to responsibly manage our nation’s finances and public investments. But that is not the purpose of this budget resolution.
50-State Analysis: GOP-Trump Tax Proposal Would Give the Store Away to the Wealthy, Exacerbate the Income Divide
October 4, 2017 • By Alan Essig
A 50-state analysis of the GOP tax framework reveals the top 1 percent of taxpayers would receive a substantial tax cut while middle- and upper-middle-income taxpayers in many states would pay more, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy said today. The GOP continues to tout its tax plan as “beneficial to the middle class.” […]
ITEP ED on GOP Tax Plan: “There is Something Terribly Wrong with This Picture”
September 27, 2017 • By Alan Essig
Economically, the rich are doing just fine, yet the GOP is brazenly selling old hat trickle-down economic theories laden with rhetoric about projected economic growth that will benefit working people. Worse, they are doing so even though opinion polling shows the majority of Americans do not want Congress to pass tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.
New Analysis Shows White House Tax Proposal Would be an Unprecedented Upward Redistribution of Wealth
September 13, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
The tax plan outlined by President Trump would strip away the U.S. tax system’s moderate progressivity by lowering the effective tax rate for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans by 7.5 percentage points and shifting more of the nation’s tax bill to every other income group, a new analysis released today by the Institute on […]
ITEP on President Trump’s Missouri Visit: The Policy Doesn’t Match the Rhetoric
August 30, 2017 • By Alan Essig
Following is a statement by Alan Essig, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, regarding President Trump’s visit to Springfield, Mo. The president is expected to tout his plans for overhauling the federal tax code. “Much like the GOP health plan was a tax cut for the wealthy masquerading as health reform, […]
GOP Will Have to Radically Depart from Previous Proposals to Meet Its Tax Reform Goals
July 27, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
Following is a statement by Alan Essig, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, regarding GOP leadership’s tax reform goals released today. The tax reform goals outlined in the letter will not be achieved if the GOP pursues pending Trump Administration and House tax proposals. “First was a so-called health reform bill […]
50-State Analysis of Trump’s Tax Outline: Poorer Taxpayers and Poorer States are Disadvantaged
July 20, 2017 • By Alan Essig
Not only would President Trump’s proposed tax plan fail to deliver on its promise of largely helping middle-class taxpayers, it also would shower a disproportionate share of the total tax cut on taxpayers in some of the richest states while southern and a few other states would receive a smaller share of the tax cut […]
Regardless of Political Maneuvers, Tax Cuts for the Rich Remain Tied to Cuts in Health Care
July 13, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
The GOP continues its dogged attempt to unravel the Affordable Care Act under the guise of ‘fixing’ our health system despite multiple Congressional Budget Office reports indicating millions stand to lose health care coverage. It’s is not obvious that this version of the bill is much different from the previous fiasco of a bill in which CBO projected 22 million would lose coverage.
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