Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

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The Root: Trump Goes on National TV to Talk about His Dumb Wall

January 8, 2019

His assertion that undocumented immigrants create a strain on our nation is basically refuted in a 2017 report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (pdf) which shows undocumented immigrants pay an estimated $11.74 billion in state and local taxes. Additionally, 50 percent of undocumented immigrants file federal tax returns using Individual Tax Identification […]

Alternet: It’s Not About National Security…the Insidious Truth Behind Trump’s Wall

January 6, 2019

Whether legal or illegal, all immigrants pay sales taxes and property taxes (the latter are factored into the cost of rental units for people who don’t own homes). And all legal immigrants pay all the payroll and income taxes that native-born Americans do. Amazingly, most illegals also cough up income and payroll taxes too. That’s […]

The Progressive: States and Localities Move to Reverse Racist and Regressive Tax Policies

January 3, 2019

And a recent analysis of state and local tax systems by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows that, as a whole, state and local governments tax the poor at higher rates than they do the rich. Why is state and local taxation so backwards in the United States? Some state constitutions prohibit progressive […]

Record Eagle (Mich.): Help Michigan’s Poor by Scrapping Gas Tax

January 3, 2019

ndeed, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy finds the Michigan tax code to be a matter of “soak the poor and middle class, spare the wealthy.” According to ITEP, the total Michigan tax rate on the top 1 percent, with average income of $1,164,700, is 5.1 percent. This includes all Michigan taxes. The lowest […]

Politics USA: Sen. Kamala Harris Immediately Introduces Middle Class Tax Cut Bill

January 3, 2019

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates the LIFT Act would impact one in every two workers and two out of every three children in America. In addition, ITEP estimates approximately 1 million Pell Grant eligible students would qualify for the credit of up to $3,000. Read more

Washington Times: Trump Tax Cut Foiled by State’s Itemized Deduction Rule

December 31, 2018

Last year, many states opened their legislative sessions at the beginning of January, just after the federal tax law passed in December 2017, leaving them little time to figure out the new landscape. “I think they were very flat-footed,” said Meg Wiehe, deputy director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “We were even […]

Mother Jones: It’s Been a Year Since Trump Enacted Sweeping Tax Cuts. The Rich Won

December 22, 2018

The surge in buybacks comes with an “opportunity cost,” says Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “You can’t spend money on things like job creation or increasing manufacturing capacity when you’re spending it on buybacks. It is a zero-sum game,” Gardner says. “Stock buybacks aren’t achieving things the […]

NBC News: How Much Does Illegal Immigration Cost America? Not As Much As Trump Claims

December 22, 2018

“It sounds extraordinarily high to me,” said Meg Wiehe, deputy director at the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). Read more

The American Prospect: The 2018 Economy in 12 Graphs

December 21, 2018

Thanks to some bold number crunching by the nerds at the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, the figure compares a regressive, supply-side tax cut, like the one we got last year, to a highly progressive expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, the GAIN Act, proposed by Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and California Representative […]

CNBC: Democrats Are Going to Attack the GOP Tax Law from Several Angles, Including SALT Caps and Breaks for Corporations

December 18, 2018

Many of the changes that Democrats are seeking have little chance of enactment amid divided government in Washington. But Alan Essig, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said Democrats are looking beyond the next two years. “While it may be difficult for the next Congress and President Trump to agree on […]

Washington Post: In Early Win for Party’s Left, House Democrats Back off Tax Rule

December 11, 2018

Henry Connelly, a spokesman for Pelosi, said the rule was unnecessary to prevent Democrats from hiking taxes on the middle class. He also noted that House Republicans waived their rule to pass their tax law in 2017, because the legislation did raise taxes on some families. “Unlike the House GOP, at the end of the […]

Washington Post: Does the Republican Tax Law Encourage Outsourcing?

December 6, 2018

“These multinational firms are going to want to stay below the 10 percent threshold, because that means the U.S. tax system won’t touch their foreign earnings,” said Matt Gardner, a tax expert at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank. “If you move a whole factory overseas, that sharply increases what […]

Arkansas Times: Race, History and Taxes

December 6, 2018

According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the poorest 20 percent of Arkansas taxpayers, those making less than $18,600, pay 11.3 cents in state and local taxes on every dollar they earn, compared to 6.9 cents on every dollar being paid by the top one percent of taxpayers making more than $442,000. Read […]

Think Progress: Trump Didn’t Know GOP Tax Bill Incentivizes Businesses to Offshore Jobs

November 30, 2018

Those findings echoed previous analysis from non-partisan agencies like like the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, which found the Republican Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would make offshore tax dodging even worse than it was before.  The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities similarly found that the plan is “likely to lead to more outsourcing of U.S. […]

Fortune: It’s Too Easy for the Ultra-Rich to Pass Down Wealth. Here’s How to Fix That

November 26, 2018

The first is to tax extreme wealth directly—specifically, with a 1% tax on the assets of the wealthiest 0.1% of households, those with assets greater than $20 million. Such a wealth tax would raise nearly $1.9 trillion over the next 10 years, according to forthcoming research from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy that […]

New York Daily News: Cyber Monday Shopping Deals Blunting by Supreme Court Ruling

November 26, 2018

“This is about improved enforcement of a tax that’s already on the books,” echoed Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, to CNBC. “For years, shoppers have been able to evade these taxes by shopping with certain online retailers.” Read more

NorthJersey.com: Democrats Taking Another Run at SALT Restoration

November 24, 2018

While it remains to be seen whether bipartisan support for a full or partial SALT restoration is feasible or even affordable in the new Congress, the fight – or at least the conversation – is one well worth having. Indeed, homeowners, particularly in the northern part of New Jersey, are going to be hit hard […]

Newark Star-Ledger: Your Property Tax Break Might Come Back if These Newly Elected Democrats Have Their Way

November 20, 2018

Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., a member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said he would introduce legislation in the new Congress to raise the $88 billion in revenue that the progressive Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy said it would cost to fully restore the state and local tax break. Read more

New York Times: Did a Tax Increase Tucked Into Trump’s Tax Cut Come Back to Bite Republicans?

November 19, 2018

Simply reinstating the unlimited cap, without also reversing the changes to the alternative minimum tax, would deliver no benefit to low-income and middle-class Americans, according to a new analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a liberal think tank. More than 85 percent of the benefits would go to the top 5 percent […]

Daily Beast: Dear Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats: Why Are You Embracing Trickle-Down Economics?

November 19, 2018

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy has found that from 2000 to 2018, the richest 20 percent of Americans have enjoyed 65 percent of all the tax cuts, with the remaining 35 percent of tax cuts were divided between the other 80 percent. The lesson from this finding is not that we should make […]

Splinter: House Democrats Balk at Prospect of Being Good

November 17, 2018

That is a disastrous idea. Alan Essig, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, noted the rule “could make it difficult, as a practical matter, to raise taxes—on the rich—without making the tax code a complicated mess. This is because few changes in the federal income tax would affect no one in […]

Lexington Herald Leader: Kentucky’s New Tax Favors for the Wealthy Won’t Spur the Economy. They Will Worsen Inequality.

November 16, 2018

Income inequality is soaring in an economy where the winners increasingly take all. The wealthiest one percent of Kentuckians make 94 times more a year on average than the bottom 20 percent. Despite that yawning gap, the state tax system is tilted in favor of those at the very top, as shown in a new […]

Slate: House Democrats Are Already Pursuing a Dumb Tax Stunt, and the Left Is Very Annoyed

November 16, 2018

But then, tucked at the bottom of page five, there’s an item that’s already setting off alarm bells across the left. The rule—endorsed by Pelosi and Richard Neal, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee—would “require a three-fifths supermajority to raise individual income taxes on the lowest-earning 80 percent of taxpayers.” The […]

Washington Post: Democrats Face Early Division in Rules over Taxes

November 16, 2018

The richest fifth of taxpayers are those who make more than $108,000 annually, said Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Some liberal Democrats said that if the party limits its own ability to raise taxes, it could make it harder for the House to adopt policies […]

Wyo File: Why Are We Footing the Bill for Billionaires?

November 16, 2018

he question, then, will be: Who pays? That question — “Who pays?” — is also at the center of a report released last month by the Washington, D.C.-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The report, Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States, looks at the different tax rates […]

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