Carl Davis
Research DirectorAreas of Expertise
tax modeling state taxes federal taxes cannabis taxes school voucher credits gas taxes dynamic scoringCarl is the research director at ITEP, where he has worked since 2008. Carl works on a wide range of issues related to state, local, and federal tax policy. He has advised policymakers, researchers, and advocates on tax policy issues in nearly every state. Much of his work pertains to tax incidence analysis, which illuminates how tax policies vary in impact across income level and race. He has contributed to five editions of ITEP’s flagship Who Pays? report, which measures effective tax rates by income level in every state, and was the project lead on the most recent edition of the study.
Carl has been deeply involved in building out ITEP’s growing portfolio of work at the intersection of taxes and race. This included advising the organization’s economists and analysts in their successful effort to attach racial identifiers to ITEP’s tax microdata, as well as authoring reports demonstrating the positive, and negative, effects that tax policy has on racial disparities.
As research director, Carl is responsible for steering ITEP’s work to new or underexplored areas and has written about proposals to legalize and tax cannabis sales, to implement vehicle-miles-traveled taxes, and to update the tax treatment of the “gig economy.” He has also investigated the connection between state taxes and economic growth, options for improving transportation funding through gas tax reform, the pitfalls of expansive tax subsidies for seniors, and promoting housing affordability with property tax circuit breakers.
Carl has conducted extensive research into tax credits for people who contribute to organizations that give out vouchers for free or reduced tuition at private K-12 schools. That research helped reveal the profitable tax shelters that these credits create for some upper-income people and was heavily cited in the run-up to an IRS regulation that curtailed use of those shelters.
Prior to assuming the role of research director, Carl worked as an analyst for ITEP and used its proprietary microsimulation tax model to perform tax incidence and revenue analyses for lawmakers and advocates across the country. Carl also previously worked as part of the State Economic Issues team at AARP. He holds bachelor’s degrees in both economics and political science from Virginia Tech and a Master’s in Public Policy from George Washington University.
Follow Carl on Twitter @carlpdavis
carl at itep.orgRecent Publications and Posts view more
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Tax Policy to Reduce Racial Retirement Wealth Inequality
Historic and ongoing discrimination have created stark racial disparities in the US, and the racial retirement wealth gap is one such example.
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New Mexico Making Tremendous Progress Making Taxes Less Regressive
Recent tax reforms have helped to bring greater balance to New Mexico's tax code. A new in-depth look at taxes in all 50 states finds New Mexico is an emerging leader, though there’s still plenty of room for improvement.
Media Mentions view more
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Audio: ITEP's Carl Davis Talks to Ohio Newsroom About That State's Upside-Down Tax Code
Ohio’s poorest residents pay a greater percentage of their income to state and local taxes than the richest Ohioans, according to a recent report from the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. It found that Ohio has the 15th most unequal tax system in the country.
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Audio: ITEP's Carl Davis Discusses Idaho's Regressive Tax System
Idaho has the 36th most regressive tax system in the nation, according to a new study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The Who Pays report says that low- and middle-income families in Idaho pay more in taxes than the wealthy, and the institute also says that disparity has only gotten worse over the last five years. May Roberts, Policy Analyst at the Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy, and Carl Davis, Research Director at the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, joined Idaho Matters to break down the study.