Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

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CNBC: Elizabeth Warren takes aim at FedEx, Nike, Amazon in push for corporate tax hike

April 27, 2021

FedEx and Nike were mentioned in an April report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy as companies that recently paid little-to-no federal corporate income taxes. “The delivery giant FedEx zeroed out its federal income tax on $1.2 billion of U.S. pretax income in 2020 and received a rebate of $230 million,” the report […]

Footwear News: Sen. Elizabeth Warren: Nike and Amazon Should Be Hit With Higher Tax Rate

April 27, 2021

Early this month, a study from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy suggested that 55 U.S.-based companies — including Nike and FedEx — did not pay corporate income taxes in their most recent fiscal year despite reporting sizable pretax profits. According to the think tank, the Swoosh didn’t pay federal income tax on about […]

Morning Call: PPL Corp. and other companies with Lehigh Valley ties paid zero U.S. taxes in 2020

April 26, 2021

Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and co-author of the organization’s report, said PPL documents show the company made pre-tax U.S. income of $880 million in 2020 but wound up with a benefit of $9 million in taxes, resulting in a minus 1% tax rate. In the three […]

Daily Kos: Democrats gave Americans a huge tax cut—just not the wealthiest ones

April 26, 2021

According to new estimates from congressional forecasters, Democratic tax cuts for low- to middle-income earners included in President Joe Biden’s relief plan could mean that people making less than $75,000 on average will pay nothing in federal income taxes this year. In other words, Democrats are doing for most Americans what Republicans achieved for many […]

Bloomberg: The Myth of the Middle-Class SALT Cap Victim

April 23, 2021

Once again, if you make well under $1 million a year and your tax rate really did go up from 2017 to 2018 because of the SALT cap, I’m not denying that your suffering is real. But you appear to be in a distinct minority even in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, California and other […]

Washington Post: The Federal Government Is Losing Billions in Unpaid Taxes, in Part Due to Racial Disparities in the Tax Code

April 23, 2021

Drawing from a report by the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, Wyden said an estimated 80 percent of the individual benefits under the Trump administration’s tax cuts went to White Americans. Read more

Bloomberg: Firms Shuffle Intangible Assets Abroad Despite U.S. Tax Break

April 23, 2021

President Joe Biden and other Democrats have said FDII has been ineffective and should be replaced or revamped. While the concerns they’ve voiced about FDII aren’t directly related to the overseas IP transfers among subsidiaries, the transactions are yet another example of how FDII hasn’t achieved its goal of getting U.S. companies to house key […]

FAIR: ‘Some of Our Most Profitable Companies Are Not Contributing to Our Basic Needs’

April 23, 2021

Janine Jackson interviewed Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy’s Amy Hanauer about corporate tax avoidance for the April 16, 2021, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript. Read more

Bloomberg: IRS Releases Country-by-Country Filings: Insights on Tax Havens, Effective Tax Rate

April 23, 2021

One of the interesting patterns in the CbCR filings is the gap between the statutory and effective tax rates. The ETR on the U.S. is just 9% versus the statutory rate is 21%. This matches up with a study done by a left-leaning think-thank, The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which found that almost […]

The Hill: Progressives Divided over Efforts to Repeal SALT Cap

April 22, 2021

Outside liberal groups are also criticizing the push to repeal the SALT deduction cap. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy released a report Tuesday that said repealing the cap would worsen racial income and wealth disparities because most of the benefits of repeal would go to high-income white families. Steve Wamhoff, director of federal […]

Axios: GOP Senators Open to Corporate Tax Increase

April 22, 2021

Driving the news: The president has highlighted a study from the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy showing 55 corporations actually received $3.5 billion in tax rebates, instead of paying approximately $8.5 billion in taxes on some $40.5 billion in income. Read more

CNBC: Black, Hispanic Families Would Benefit Less from a SALT Cap Repeal than Whites

April 21, 2021

Repealing the $10,000 state and local tax deduction cap is likely to have uneven results for Americans. In fact, Black families are 42% less likely and Hispanic families are 33% less likely than white ones to see a tax break from a SALT cap repeal, according to a recent analysis from the left-leaning Institute on […]

Jacobin: Democrats’ Lies About Tax Breaks Sound a Lot Like Republicans’

April 20, 2021

If you only listened to Democratic lawmakers, you might think these numbers are dramatically different in Democratic states with higher state and local taxes — but “there is no state where this is a primarily middle-class issue,” reported the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. As just one example: the group’s state-by-state analysis found that […]

Bloomberg: SALT Cap Revolt Led by N.Y. Democrats Snarls Biden Spending Plan

April 20, 2021

A study released Tuesday showed that the cap also would disproportionately benefit White families over non-White households, further complicating the Biden administration’s plans to make racial equity a core plank of any economic proposal. The study by the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy showed that more than 72% of the tax cuts from […]

Forbes: Repealing The Cap On State And Local Tax Deductions Would Widen The Racial Wealth Gap, New Study Shows

April 20, 2021

As some lawmakers from high-tax Blue states push for the elimination of the Trump-era $10,000 cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions, a new study from the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows that repealing the deduction would not only disproportionately benefit the wealthy, but also white taxpayers, widening the already yawning […]

The Hill: Left-leaning Group: SALT Cap Repeal Would Worsen Racial Income Disparities

April 20, 2021

Repealing the cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction would exacerbate racial income and wealth disparities, according to an analysis released Tuesday from the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). The think tank’s report comes as a growing number of Democratic lawmakers are pushing for the SALT cap to be repealed […]

Associated Press: Should states set pot policy by its potency? Some say yes

April 20, 2021

Potency taxes have an upside for states: more stable revenue than sales taxes, says Carl Davis of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a progressive think tank. That’s because sales tax totals can fall with prices in a maturing market. Read more

The Washington Post: Biden Wants to Crack Down on Corporate Tax Loopholes, Resuming a Battle His Predecessors Lost

April 20, 2021

More than 60 percent of U.S. multinationals’ reported foreign income is booked in seven small countries that promise to only nibble at corporate profits, about twice the share as in 2000, according to Bank of America. The tax avoidance efforts — entirely legal under U.S. law — resulted in 55 of the nation’s largest corporations […]

New York Times: Make Tax-Dodging Companies Pay for Biden’s Infrastructure Plan

April 18, 2021

American companies and companies that make money in the United States are not paying enough money in taxes. Even as profits have soared, tax payments have declined. Fifty-five of the nation’s largest corporations — including FedEx, Nike and the agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland — paid nothing in federal income taxes in 2020, despite collectively […]

Jacobin: Never Trust a CEO Who Says They Want to Help

April 15, 2021

Meanwhile, at least twelve corporate members of the Business Roundtable paid nothing in federal taxes last year, according to the advocacy group Patriotic Millionaires’ review of data compiled by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Read more

Washington Post: Biden proposals may not guarantee all Fortune 500 corporations pay federal income taxes, experts say

April 15, 2021

Of the 55 corporations that did not pay federal income taxes in 2020, only five had more than $2 billion in net income, according to the report by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank. That means the overwhelming majority of them would not be subject to the book tax. Matt […]

Washington Post: Opinion: Americans are liberals on taxes, living under a conservative system

April 15, 2021

When you combine all the kinds of taxes people pay, you see the system is almost flat. As this report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows, in 2018, Americans in the middle of the income distribution paid 25.4 percent of their income in taxes, while those in the top 1 percent paid […]

Los Angeles Times: Column: California Democrats have a chance to flex some muscle and work to restore deductions for taxpayers

April 15, 2021

Standard deductions were nearly doubled and so were child credits. Importantly for many upper-middle-class Californians, the alternative minimum tax was significantly lowered. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy reports that if the caps were eliminated, half the savings for California would go to the richest — the top 1%. Read more

The News-Gazette: Jim Dey | Once scourge of rich, governor’s now their defender

April 14, 2021

That’s one reason why, in his letter to Biden, Pritzker & Co. ignored higher earners, complaining that “middle class Americans are struggling under this federal tax burden.” That’ s just not so, according to the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. It concluded that “62 percent of the benefits would go to the richest […]

City & State (NY): Correcting disinformation about the excluded workers fund

April 14, 2021

Technically, no employee in New York pays into unemployment as it’s a tax on employers, but their employment is what leads to the pay-ins. While it’s impossible to know whether every person who will receive benefits has paid state, local or federal taxes, the available research shows that the majority of undocumented immigrants do pay […]

Members of the media rely on ITEP for analysis and insight about how tax policies affect people. If you’re a reporter looking to talk to one of our experts, contact Jon Whiten at [email protected].