Matthew Gardner
Senior Fellow
Areas of Expertise
Economic modeling federal tax policy state tax policy corporate taxesMatt is a senior fellow at ITEP where he has worked since 1998. He previously served as ITEP’s executive director from 2006 to 2016. Mr. Gardner’s work focuses on federal, state and local tax systems, with a particular emphasis on the impact of tax policies on low- and moderate-income tax payers. He uses ITEP’s microsimulation model to produce economic projections and analyses on the effects of current and proposed federal and state tax and budget policies.
Matt is a noted corporate tax expert and the primary author of ITEP’s regular corporate studies on the tax habits of Fortune 500 corporations (most recently, The 35 Percent Corporate Tax Myth) as well as publications on international corporate tax avoidance. He regularly examines corporate financial filings and writes briefs, blogs and reports on trends in corporate tax avoidance. He monitors and researches federal tax policies and writes about their impact on tax fairness and sustainability, and he is often called on to speak publicly about corporate tax issues and federal and state tax policies.
Matt’s earlier work for ITEP focused on state policy. He is an author of Who Pays: A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States (2003, 2009, 2013, and 2015 editions). He has conducted tax analyses for state and local policymakers and advocates in more than 45 states. Matt has degrees from the University of Maryland and the University of Rochester. He resides in Washington, D.C. and originally hails from Raleigh, N.C.
mattg at itep.orgRecent Publications and Posts view more
-
GOP Legacy on IRS Administration: Auditing Mississippi, not Microsoft
Money doesn’t buy happiness—but it can buy immunity from the reach of Uncle Sam. The IRS is outgunned in cases against corporate giants because that’s how Republican leaders want it to be. They have systematically assaulted the agency’s enforcement capacity through decades of funding cuts. Instead of saving money, these cuts have cost billions: each dollar spent on the IRS results in several dollars of tax revenue collected.
-
White House Council of Economic Advisers Crows about Lowest-Income Americans Being Infinitesimally “Wealthier”
When the White House Council of Economic Advisors last week tweeted that the poorest 50 percent of Americans’ wealth is growing 3 times faster than the wealth of the top 1 percent, we were skeptical. As it turns out, the CEA’s tweet is a reminder that the poorest 50 percent wealth grew twice as fast during Barack Obama’s second term than it has under Trump, but to this day remains far below its pre-recession share and significantly less than what it was 30 years ago.
Media Mentions view more
-
Public News Service: Report: Many Big Companies Pay Nothing Under New Tax Law
HELENA, Mont. - During the first year of the Trump administration's new tax law, 91 Fortune 500 companies didn't pay…
-
Mother Jones: Chevron Made $4.5 Billion in 2018. So Why Did the IRS Give Them a Refund?
The largest chunk of Chevron’s $1.1 billion in tax breaks came in the form of tax deferral, a longstanding tax…