Select Media Mentions
Chicago Booth Review: Why Some Companies Don’t Maximize Tax Avoidance
July 15, 2019
This conundrum may come as a surprise to those who noticed that Amazon, Netflix, General Motors, and at least 57 other Fortune 500 companies didn’t pay a cent in US income tax last year on a combined $79 billion of profits, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. But as Weisbach has put […]
The Hill: 2020 Democrats Push Tax Hike on Wealthy Investors
July 14, 2019
Former President Obama proposed raising capital gains rates for high earners to 28 percent, still short of the top ordinary income tax rate. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton proposed increasing capital gains rates for investments held in the medium term but proposed keeping the top long-term rate the same. And Democrats […]
MarketWatch: Here’s What 2020 Democratic Candidates Have Said About Universal Basic Income
July 11, 2019
Harris’s proposal would cost more than $270 billion in 2020, according to an estimate by the Washington, D.C.-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Read more
Daily Progress: Opinion/Commentary: New IRS Rule Narrows Tax Loophole in Virginia
July 7, 2019
First, people and businesses making stock contributions, rather than cash, may still be able to profit from their donations through avoidance of capital gains taxes. A fix suggested by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy is to require taxpayers to pay capital gains tax if they receive a large state tax credit as compensation […]
The Washington Post: States Are Doing It. So Why Hasn’t Congress Increased the Federal Gas Tax?
July 6, 2019
All told, 31 of the 50 states have raised or reformed their motor fuel taxes during the past decade, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. What’s more, 22 states now have variable-rate policies in place to make sure that inflation does not erode this crucial revenue stream. In so doing, they are […]
Public News Service: Deadline Today for WA Initiative Requiring Voter Approval for Tax Increases
July 5, 2019
Taxes took center stage because of a finding that Washington has the most regressive tax code in the country. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, people in the top 1% pay 3% or less of their income in taxes, while those in the bottom 20% pay nearly 18%. Read more
CT Mirror: Gasoline Taxes Are on the Rise — Just not in CT
July 5, 2019
Twelve states ordered gasoline tax hikes that took effect this week, according to the nonprofit Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). While many policymakers say fuel levies are on the way out, the latest increases mean 31 out of 50 states have raised gasoline taxes at least once this decade, according to ITEP. Read […]
Business Insider: Gas and Diesel Prices Rose at the Worst Possible Time for Drivers in the US and These States Are Being Affected Most
July 3, 2019
For some states, the gas tax increase has been long delayed. Some states have postponed this increase for several years due to the political challenges, Carl Davis, a research director at the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, told Business Insider. Davis is an expert in transportation infrastructure funding. “Lawmakers don’t want to take a […]
Pacific Standard: Developers Aren’t Reporting How They’re Using Tax Incentives Meant for Low-Income Areas
July 2, 2019
Even for those who have tracked the bill closely, the reporting process remains opaque. “This bill was thrown together so incredibly quickly—there weren’t hearings on it, these types of questions weren’t fleshed out in the way they should have been, so a lot of how this was put together remains a mystery,” says Carl Davis, […]
The Wall Street Journal: From Gas Taxes to Vaping Rules, New State Laws Take Effect Across U.S.
July 2, 2019
Drivers in a number of states will now pay higher taxes on gas as part of a broader push to fund infrastructure improvements. In Illinois, the gas tax has doubled to 38 cents from 19 cents, making it the largest increase for any of these states, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, […]
Bloomberg: Horse Racing Tax Credit Backers Not Deterred by House Setback
July 1, 2019
Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said there are sensible reasons to ask whether these tax breaks are more generous than they should be. ITEP is among organizations that have criticized the practice of extending temporary tax break and asked Congress to do away with them. “This sounds […]
Nevada Business: Taxes and Nevada: The Give and Take
July 1, 2019
Many of those breaks and loop holes were left in place by the new policies, said Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “There are a lot of breaks and loopholes that allow a company not to pay,” Wamhoff told Yahoo Finance. “People, when they think of […]
Bloomberg: Gas Tax Hike Takes Effect in Five States This Month
July 1, 2019
All state gas taxes are tacked onto the federal government’s 18.4 cent-per-gallon levy, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Read more
CNN: Amazon’s Less-Than-Zero Tax Rate Is Unacceptable
June 28, 2019
So, what is Amazon’s tax rate? According to The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, it was at 11% from 2011 to 2016, which was apparently too much for owner Jeff Bezos’s tastes — Amazon’s 2018 income tax rate plummeted to -1%. That’s a minus sign in front of the 1, signaling a negative tax […]
Bankrate.com: Six Key Takeaways from the First Round of Debates
June 28, 2019
Big technology companies such as Amazon have been hit with criticism in recent months, including after the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) reported in February that the online retail giant paid nothing in federal taxes on its $11.2 billion in profits. In October 2018, CEO Jeff Bezos announced that the online retail giant […]
ABC: Fact Checking Night Two of the First Democratic Debate
June 28, 2019
More recently, in February, an analysis of Amazon corporate filings by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that the company got a rebate of $129 million for tax year 2018. Analysts say Amazon was able to whittle down its tax liability by taking advantage of tax credits and deductions. Read more
Vox: Buttigieg and Biden Acknowledged an Important Truth about Undocumented Workers
June 28, 2019
That’s not true. Contrary to this persistent myth, undocumented immigrants do in fact pay taxes. Millions of undocumented immigrants file tax returns each year, and they are paying taxes for many benefits they can’t even use. The best estimates come from research by the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning Washington, DC, think […]
Washington Post: Democratic presidential candidates engage in ‘arms race to the left’ in first debate
June 27, 2019
On taxes, many of the candidates also emphasized their more left-leaning ideas to raise rates on corporations and make the tax system more progressive, while none touted plans to keep taxes low for businesses, noted Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Wamhoff noted that Delaney did […]
Axios: Correcting Halliburton’s Taxes
June 27, 2019
Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, emailed this morning to say that I was reading the below section of the 10-K backward. Rather than paying $19 million in taxes, Halliburton declared it was owed a $19 million refund. Gardner explains: “‘Current Federal [taxes] looks at first glance like […]
Washington Post: Amazon Was the Only Tech Company Called Out
June 27, 2019
Income inequality has emerged as one of the top issues for Democrats in 2020, and few examples illustrate the uneven playing field in the U.S. more aptly than profitable companies avoiding paying corporate taxes. Amazon emerged as the symbol of that issue after the company received a federal tax rebate of $129 million on income […]
New House Bill Sponsored by Rep. Tlaib
June 27, 2019
Tlaib said in recent weeks that she was working on a bill that was like the EITC “on steroids.” The liberal Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy called the measure, dubbed the BOOST Act and which offers a $3,000 credit to single filers and $6,000 to married couples, the “most expansive to date” in that […]
The Hill: Tlaib Rolls Out Bill to Create Tax Credit for Low- and Middle-Class People
June 26, 2019
The House Ways and Means Committee passed a Democratic bill last week to provide expansions of the earned income tax credit, the child tax credit and the child and dependent care tax credit for two years. The left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimated that Tlaib’s credit would provide most of its benefits to […]
The Hill: Dems Talk up Tax Credits to Counter Trump Tax Law
June 24, 2019
The left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) released a report last month finding that the bulk of the benefits for many of Democrats’ tax-credit proposals would go to those in the bottom 60 percent of income, and that very little of the benefits would go to those in the top 20 percent of […]
Fox Business: Ocasio-Cortez Criticizes Amazon’s Bezos for Paying Workers’ Starvation Wages’
June 16, 2019
Concerns were also triggered by the tax breaks and subsidies Amazon – one of the world’s most valuable companies by market cap – would be given for building its second headquarters in New York. Last year, Amazon did not pay a single dollar in federal income taxes despite nearly doubling its profit from 2017 ($5.6 […]
International Business Times: Amazon News: What Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders Said About The Retail Giant On Taxes And Its New Credit Card
June 15, 2019
On Thursday, Biden posted on Twitter how Amazon pays a “lower tax rate than teachers and firefighters.” The New York Times in April noted how Amazon paid no taxes in 2018, citing a study from the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The study showed the company actually paid a -1.2% in taxes due to a $129 million tax rebate. The […]
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