Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

Select Media Mentions

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 […]

Bloomberg: U.S. Companies Flee No-Tax Caribbean Havens after EU Crackdown

November 16, 2018

Facebook Inc. has said it plans to almost triple its workforce in Singapore. The social media giant only reports Irish and Singapore subsidiaries, according to a 2017 study by the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Read more

CBS News: Can New York Make Back Its Amazon Investment

November 14, 2018

Opponents of corporate subsidies said Amazon’s choices prove taxpayer incentives matter much less than advertised. “[A]ccess to an educated workforce and high-quality public amenities are what drive business location decisions — not the presence of low or regressive taxes,” the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy said in a statement. “These cross-state bidding wars are […]

Real News Network: Even for Local Taxes, the Rich Pay Far Less Than the Poor

November 14, 2018

  Dylan Grundman, an ITEP senior policy analyst, discusses Who Pays.

Yahoo! Finance: How Trump’s Tax Cuts Hurt the GOP in America’s Wealthy Suburbs

November 12, 2018

Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, told Yahoo Finance that the same story has been playing out across the country. “I think Californians and New Yorkers are right to feel that they didn’t get an especially good deal out of that tax overhaul,” Davis said. “Their tax cuts, relative […]

Washington Post: In blow to liberal efforts, voters across the country reject tax increases. (California is the exception.)

November 7, 2018

North Carolina voters, for instance, approved a change to their state constitution bringing down the maximum allowable tax rate from 10 percent to 7 percent. That will effectively only spare the rich from higher taxes, because no tax increases in that neighborhood are on the table for the middle class, but the average voter may […]

Governing: Voters Lower Cap on Income Tax in North Carolina

November 6, 2018

Still, many worry that locking down North Carolina’s income tax rates will hamstring future policymakers’ ability to raise revenue. North Carolina is one of a handful of states that has prioritized tax cuts over restoring education funding since the recession ended in 2009. It also is among states that saw teacher protests this spring over […]

Washington Post: Threat of Arizona Tax Measure Brings Together Liberals, Koch Brothers

November 6, 2018

(Meg Wiehe, a tax specialist at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, argued the sales tax is passed on to the consumers and that these businesses are not “double taxed.”) Gullett also said that the organization “has received enormous support from the Arizona Association of Realtors,” calling the group “consistent defenders of consumers.” … […]

The Hill: IRS Sparks New Fight Over School Donations

November 4, 2018

However, other groups at the hearing, including representatives of public schools and the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), defended the application of the IRS guidance to the tax-credit scholarship programs. They argued that there is evidence that these programs had been advertised as tax shelters before the 2017 tax law. “This regulation […]

The New Orleans Advocate: James Gill: Louisiana’s Tax System Isn’t the Most Unfair in the Nation, But It’s not for Lack of Trying

November 3, 2018

According to a study just released by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy in Washington, Washington State sets the regressive standard, while we rank 14th. If your income is $17,100 or less in Louisiana, you'll pay 11.9 percent of it in taxes. That number shrinks the further you go up on the income scale and is roughly halved by the time you reach fat-cat territory. Sales and excise taxes take 9.2 percent from the poorest, and 1.2 percent from the richest.

The New Yorker: If Jeff Bezos Makes Washington the Second Headquarters of Amazon

November 3, 2018

 Earlier this year, Seattle’s city council passed a tax on large corporations aimed at raising an estimated forty-seven million dollars a year for affordable-housing initiatives. But after about a month the city council repealed the tax—in response to a ballot challenge funded in part by Amazon, which threatened to leave Seattle if the tax was implemented. Matthew Gardner, a tax-policy analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, told the Washington Post, “Nobody on Seattle’s city council wants to be the one who chased Amazon out of town.”

Inside Higher Ed: Democratic Contenders Get Ambitious With Equity Proposals

October 30, 2018

The Harris tax credit bill, called the LIFT the Middle Class Act, could also have implications for higher ed access -- although the legislation wouldn’t have the same focus on assisting students from the poorest families. The proposal would function like a beefed-up version of the earned income tax credit and phase in quickly for individuals and married couples who work. It would offer substantial immediate benefits. Families earning up to $60,000 could receive up to $6,000 annually under the proposal. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimated that one million Pell-eligible students would qualify for a $3,000 tax…

NJ Spotlight: GOP Leaders Call on NJ Democrats to Reconsider Middle-class Tax Cuts

October 29, 2018

The related tax-cut bills — and another that would shield most retirement-savings contributions from state income taxes — were introduced at the start of the year but have not been posted for votes by the Democratic leaders who control the Assembly’s agenda. Bucco suggested a report released earlier this month by the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy that found middle-income taxpayers in New Jersey pay a higher effective tax rate than any other group — including the top 1 percent of earners — as a reason to begin prioritizing adoption of the GOP bills.

PolitiFact: Does Vermont Have the ‘Most Progressive’ Tax System in the Country?

October 29, 2018

Carl Davis, the research director for ITEP, said he doesn’t believe it would be accurate to call Vermont the most progressive state. California has a much higher top rate for the wealthiest taxpayers, he said.  "In our research Vermont does not have the most progressive system in the nation, but it is certainly far less regressive than the vast majority of states," Davis said.

The Columbia Missourian: New Tax on Motor Fuels Would Rev up Road and Bridge Spending

October 25, 2018

As it stands, only Alaska has a lower fuel tax than Missouri. Every neighboring state’s tax is higher. And more than 20 states increased their fuel taxes between 2013 and 2017, according to Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy website. Read more

Bloomberg: Kamala Harris Tax Plan Would Cost $2.8 Trillion, Conservative Group Says

October 24, 2018

ITEP’s Wiehe said the plan is more highly targeted than the 2017 tax law to help low-income workers. The poorest 20 percent would see a $2,100 benefit under the Harris plan, compared with $80 under the GOP plan, she said. About 123 million workers would receive tax breaks under the plan, according to Wiehe.

The Fiscal Times: Democrats Take Aim at Republicans on Entitlement Cuts

October 24, 2018

The ITEP analysis of federal tax cuts from 2001 to 2018 found that they had reduced revenues by trillions of dollars, with a big chunk of the benefits flowing to the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers. “By the end of 2025, the tally of tax cuts will grow to $10.6 trillion,” the ITEP report says. “Nearly $2 trillion of this amount will have gone to the richest 1 percent.”

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].