Select Media Mentions
The Columbus Dispatch: Business Groups Pushing to Save Tax Breaks for Richest Ohioans
May 25, 2019
Policy Matters says the analysis, completed by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, found that virtually all of the Ohio tax filers who would pay more under the overall House plan are among the top 5% of Ohio taxpayers, making over $208,000. Read more
Akron Beacon Journal: A $1 Billion State Tax Break Still Worth Shrinking
May 24, 2019
What does the House propose? It would reduce the exemption to the first $100,000 in “pass through” income and wipe out the special 3 percent tax rate. That would save $528 million a year. It would do so without affecting 86 percent of those claiming the exemption. Who would see a change? Policy Matters Ohio […]
New Hampshire Business Review: Some NH Firms Paid Little or No Tax in 2018
May 23, 2019
Those companies are hardly unique. “Not a Dime,” a recent study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), found that at least 60 of the Fortune 500 companies paid no taxes to the federal government in 2018, even though they made substantial profits. (There may be more, but the financial filings for the […]
New York Times: Democrats’ Tax Cuts Target Middle Class More Than Trump’s, Study Says
May 22, 2019
Tax plans from several Democratic candidates for president would cost less than President Trump’s signature tax cuts but deliver larger benefits to most low- and middle-income Americans, according to a new analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a liberal think tank in Washington. The analysis is one of the first to examine […]
Arizona Daily Sun: Tax Dodgers Inc.
May 21, 2019
How is it possible to pay less than zero? By riddling the tax code with so many special deductions and gimmicks that the government owes you money! On tax day this year, a watchdog group called ITEP (Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy) issued a report documenting that 60 of America’s biggest corporations used the […]
Wharton: Have Stock Buybacks Gone Too Far?
May 16, 2019
Fueled by the lower corporate tax rate, share buybacks among S&P 500 companies shot to a fourth consecutive record in the last quarter of 2018, according to Standard & Poor’s. What’s more is that the lower tax rate enabled dozens of profitable Fortune 500 companies such as Amazon and IBM to avoid paying federal taxes […]
Hartford Courant: We Are a Group of Wealthy Connecticut residents, and we want to pay more in taxes.
May 14, 2019
Connecticut was slow to recover from the Great Recession. Meanwhile, inequality has skyrocketed. As the economy grew coming out of the recession, 100 percent of increased income in Connecticut has gone to the top 1 percent of earners. At the same time, the remaining 99 percent of income earners have seen their income decline, on […]
WBNS Ohio: Expert explains why Ohio gas prices can fluctuate so quickly
May 12, 2019
Ohio is now the 30th state to raise or reform its gas tax this decade, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). Starting July 1, 2019, a 10.5 cent gas tax and 19 cent diesel tax increase will take effect with the purpose of fixing deteriorating roads and bridges around the state. […]
Salon: The Tax Bill for Many Big Polluters Last Year? $0
May 12, 2019
Adapting to our warming world is expensive. It costs a lot to build sea walls, cure disease outbreaks, and rebuild after floods. It takes money to invent better batteries, turn farms into carbon sinks, and replace polluting power plants with clean energy. Instead of maybe taxing carbon emissions to pay for all this, the United […]
ABC News: Trump Lobbied for Tax Loopholes in the 1990s
May 9, 2019
The sweeping, bipartisan law that Trump railed against was popular in both Democrat and Republican circles, as it got rid of numerous loopholes, reduced tax-code chicanery and lowered tax rates across income brackets. “The 1986 tax law was the gold standard for tax reform because it removed loopholes and simplified the tax system,” said Steve […]
Allentown Morning Call: Fortune 500 company PPL not only paid no federal taxes last year, it got a $19 million rebate; it says it has invested those savings
May 8, 2019
Sixty of America’s Fortune 500 corporations paid nothing — or got refunds — for 2018, according to a report released last month by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy in Washington, described as a left-leaning think tank by the Washington Post and New York Times. In PPL’s case, the institute said the company received […]
Voice of America: In the US, Death Is More Certain Than Taxes
May 8, 2019
In the corporate world, however, with the tax overhaul pushed to passage by Trump and Republican lawmakers in 2017 that cut the basic federal corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, 60 of the biggest U.S. corporations avoided paying any taxes last year, according to the Washington-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The research […]
The Hill: Tax Prep Companies Under Fire over Free File Program
May 8, 2019
Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy for the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said that it’s inevitable that when private companies are tasked with offering a public service, they will do things to maximize their profits. A free tax-filing service “would be carried out more efficiently publicly rather than privately,” he added. […]
Governing: What States Can Do to Drastically Reduce Child Poverty
May 6, 2019
The following is an excerpt of an op-ed by Meg Wiehe and Christopher Whimer published in Governing: States have been called laboratories of democracy because they often launch some of the boldest policy ideas. Before the Affordable Care Act provided health insurance access for millions more Americans, for example, Massachusetts implemented a law that served […]
Newark Star-Ledger: The 5 NJ Companies Reported Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Income Last Year. Their Federal Tax Bill: $0
May 5, 2019
Identifying companies that pay nothing in federal taxes is no easy task, said Matthew Gardner, one of the authors of the IATEP report, and he suspects there are far more than the ones that his analysis uncovered. “The real number is probably bigger than 60,” he said. “Almost certainly.” The data examined by the group […]
Crain’s Detroit Business: If Whitmer’s Gas Tax Increase Is Dead, Sales Tax on Services, Anyone?
May 5, 2019
Car rentals at Detroit Metro Airport are subject to the sales tax. But ordering a ride from an Uber driver at the airport is exempted from sales tax because it’s a service. “Why should one of those people pay sales taxes and not the other?” asks Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation […]
Vox: Apple Is Spending Even More of Its Huge Tax Cut on Wall Street Stock Buybacks
May 1, 2019
Apple, like a lot of corporations, wasn’t paying the full 35 percent corporate tax rate even before the tax cut bill was passed, but the new legislation has been very good to it. According to the liberal-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, dozens of profitable Fortune 500 companies paid no federal income taxes at all […]
Houston Chronicle: Under New Tax Code, Oil Companies Get Rebates, Not Bills
May 1, 2019
Despite earning billions of dollars in profits, companies such as the California oil major Chevron, the Houston independent oil companies Occidental Petroleum and EOG Resources, and the Houston oil field services company Halliburton were able to claim tens of millions in tax rebates, according to a study earlier this month by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
Bloomberg: Gas Tax for Infrastructure Sparks Fears of Political Backlash
May 1, 2019
Some 30 states have raised their fuel taxes since 2003 -- including Republican-led Ohio, Arkansas and Alabama this year -- according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. States tack on an average tax of nearly 29 cents per gallon, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Pacific Standard: Can Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies Pay for Beto O’Rourke’s Climate Plan?
April 30, 2019
"The 2017 tax act, through its omission of true tax reform, really does leave a lot of opportunities available to Congress, starting in 2020, to broaden the tax base in a way that could raise a substantial amount of money," says Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The Trump administration's tax legislation, known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, did little to close corporate tax breaks enjoyed by oil and gas and other industries, according to Gardner, "and in fact made some of the biggest tax breaks even bigger."
Houston Chronicle: Oil Companies Dodge Tax Bills Under Trump Reforms, Study Says
April 30, 2019
Despite earning billions of dollars in profits, companies like Halliburton, Chevron, Occidental Petroleum and EOG Resources were able to claim tens of millions in tax rebates, according to a study earlier this month by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
MinnPost: Legislative Tax Plans: Equitable, Inspirational or Destructive?
April 30, 2019
Minnesota’s current tax system is considered one of the nation’s most progressive. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonpartisan think tank that assesses state and federal tax policies, ranks the state the fourth most-equitable in the way it taxes lower-income residents. It’s the provider tax and that proposed gas tax hike — two inherently regressive taxes — that drag down the overall progressivity of the plans.
New York Times: Apple Plans to Buy $75 Billion More of Its Own Stock
April 30, 2019
When it repatriated its cash under the new tax law, Apple paid $43 billion less than it would have under previous rates, bigger savings than any other American company, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a research group in Washington. Apple has also saved billions of dollars under the lower corporate tax rate. Apple says it is spending billions in the United States, hiring new workers, building data centers, expanding offices in Texas and investing in some outside manufacturers.
Washington Post: Democrats Said a GOP Tax Law Provision Would Devastate Blue States. That’s Not Happening.
April 30, 2019
“A lot of these claims were knee-jerk, political reactions,” said Carl Davis, a tax analyst for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank. “Some perspective is needed on some of the wild claims about how it would damage blue states’ economies.”
New York Times: Profitable Giants Like Amazon Pay $0 in Corporate Taxes. Some Voters Are Sick of It.
April 29, 2019
The list of profitable companies that pay no corporate taxes, compiled by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank, also includes Goodyear and three other Ohio companies, including the Akron-based electric utility FirstEnergy. The company, which has the naming rights to the Cleveland Browns’ stadium, paid no taxes last year on $1.5 billion in income, according to the analysis, and will receive additional tax credits that can be used in the future. In a win for consumers, some of that will be returned to the utility’s customers.
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].
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