Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

Select Media Mentions

The Atlantic: Kamala Harris’s Trump-Size Tax Plan

October 18, 2018

An analysis of Harris’s proposal by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy finds it to be roughly the same size as the Trump tax cuts. But the average family in the bottom income quintile will see $100 in benefits from Trump’s tax initiative as of 2019, with the average family in the middle getting $800 in benefits and $55,190 for those in in the top 1 percent. In contrast, Harris’s legislation would have families in the bottom and middle of the income distribution benefit by $2,000 on average, with no effect on those at the top.

NJ BIZ: Report: NJ’s Top Earners Pay Lower Tax Share Than Middle-Income Families

October 17, 2018

New Jersey’s top earners enjoy vastly more wealth than the majority of New Jersey residents but pay a much lower percentage of taxes than middle-income families in the state. That’s according to a nationwide analysis released Wednesday by New Jersey Policy Perspective and the Institution of Taxation and Economic Policy.

KUOW: Washington State Tops ‘Terrible Ten’ List for Taxes

October 17, 2018

Washington State's tax system is widening the gap between the rich and the poor. That's according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) based in Washington, D.C. “What you see is that Washington’s tax system couldn’t possibly be further from hitting people evenly,” Carl Davis said. “People are having to devote very different shares of their household budgets to funding state and local government.”

Topeka-Capital Journal: New Study: Kansas’ Tax Policy Ranks as 23rd Most Regressive in the Nation

October 17, 2018

A 50-state study of tax systems found Kansas’ lowest-income residents pay 1.5 times more in taxes as a percent of income compared with the wealthiest residents, ranking the state 23rd in the nation on an equity index. “State lawmakers have control over how their tax systems are structured,” said Meg Wiehe, the institute’s deputy director and a study author. “They can and should enact more equitable tax policies that raise adequate revenue in a fair, sustainable way.”

The American Prospect: Think the GOP Tax Cut Was for the Rich? Actually, It Was for the White and Rich.

October 16, 2018

The $1.5 trillion tax cut signed into law last December by President Trump is not only widening the economic gap between the rich and everyone else, but also between white Americans and people of color. That’s according to a new, first-of-its-kind analysis of the 2017 Republican Tax Act by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) and Prosperity Now, a nonprofit advocacy group for low-income households. Using an economic model created by ITEP, the report drills down on the racial implications of the Republicans’ handiwork. The report’s authors found that racial inequities are a feature of the tax law, not a…

Truthout: North Carolina Ballot Initiative Would Enshrine Tax Cuts for the Rich

October 16, 2018

“Since 2012, when Republicans took full control of the legislature and governorship for the first time in modern history, they’ve been on a tax cutting rampage,” said Meg Wiehe, a North Carolina native and deputy director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “The state will be about $3.6 billion shorter in revenue than it would have been otherwise, which is a pretty significant difference in a state with a general fund of just around $21 billion.”

Pod Save the People: Flint: Lead & Beyond

October 16, 2018

DeRay, Brittany, Sam and Clint discuss the overlooked news, including the decline of U.S. prison populations, how American abortion policies affect women around the world, the death penalty, and who benefits from President Trump's tax cuts. (Podcast)

Law360: State Tax Codes Can Help Mitigate Poverty

October 15, 2018

State lawmakers have a tremendous opportunity to combat poverty with smart tax policies that can improve the lives of millions. Specifically, refundable tax credits for low-income workers and their families can play a role in positioning the nation’s most vulnerable families for success. Tax credits are also a vital tool for mitigating the upside-down nature of most state and local tax systems, which take a greater share of income from low- and middle-income families than from wealthy families. They are also especially important at a time when many federal lawmakers are determined to dismantle the safety net creating even more…

Mother Jones: A New Study Shows White Families Getting Four-Fifths of Trump’s Tax Cut

October 13, 2018

“Households of color have less income and have less wealth than white households, in large part due to centuries of systemic racism,” says Meg Wiehe, ITEP’s deputy director and one of the report’s authors. “So inevitably a tax cut that’s so expensive and so tilted to the top is furthering not just income inequality—it’s also furthering racial inequity in income and in wealth.”

Orlando Sentinel: Commentary: Vote No On Amendment 5: Allows a Few to Thwart the Needs of Many

October 12, 2018

This amendment would lock in tax breaks and loopholes for the wealthy and large corporations, making our tax system even more unfair than it is now. The nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy reports that only one state ranks lower in terms of the fairness of its tax system. Floridians who make $17,000 pay nearly 13 percent of their income in state and local taxes, and those who make more than $489,000 pay less than 2 percent. Amendment 5 would permanently enshrine this discrimination in our Constitution.

PolitiFact: Do Trump Tariffs Cost More Than Affordable Care Act Taxes?

October 12, 2018

Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, added that regardless of imports volume, we don’t know how they will get passed through by the companies paying them, either. And not everyone has to pay them -- consumers could simply redirect their demand.

WBOC16: Incorporating in Delaware: The Perks and Pitfalls

October 12, 2018

Some critics of Delaware LLCs say until Delaware's corporate code is adjusted, criminal activity will continue to exist in Delaware's corporations. Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, authored a report entitled "Delaware: An Onshore Tax Haven."

The Guardian: I’m Undocumented. It’s Time to Reveal What That Actually Means

October 12, 2018

Nationwide, the amount of taxes that the Internal Revenue Service collects from undocumented workers ranges from almost $2.2m in Montana, which has an estimated undocumented population of 4,000, to more than $3.1bn in California, which is home to more than 3 million undocumented immigrants. According to the non-partisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, undocumented immigrants nationwide pay an estimated 8% of their incomes in state and local taxes on average. To put that in perspective, the top 1% of taxpayers pay an average nationwide effective tax rate of just 5.4%.

TalkPoverty: North Carolina Legislators Want to Add Tax Breaks for the Rich to the State Constitution

October 11, 2018

“Since 2012, when Republicans took full control of the legislature and governorship for the first time in modern history, they’ve been on a tax cutting rampage,” said Meg Wiehe, a North Carolina native and deputy director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “The state will be about $3.6 billion shorter in revenue than it would have been otherwise, which is a pretty significant difference in a state with a general fund of just around $21 billion.”

Law360: TCJA Increases Racial, Economic Tax Divides, Report Says

October 11, 2018

The recent federal tax overhaul disproportionately benefits white households over households of color, increasing the wealth gap not just along income lines but along racial lines as well, according to a...

New York Times: White Americans Gain the Most From Trump’s Tax Cuts, a Report Finds

October 11, 2018

The tax cuts that President Trump signed into law last year are disproportionately helping white Americans over African-Americans and Latinos, a disparity that reflects longstanding racial economic inequality in the United States and the choices that Republicans made in crafting the law.

NPR: It’s Been 25 Years Since The Federal Gas Tax Went Up

October 5, 2018

Yet over those 25 years, the cost of building and maintaining roads, bridges and transit has shot up, leaving the highway trust fund, which pays the federal portion of highway and transit projects, running on empty. “The whole reason this tax exists is to keep our roads paved and to keep our bridges from falling down,” says Davis. “And to do that effectively, it needs to collect a sustainable amount of revenue over time to cover the cost of paving roads and maintaining bridges, and it can’t do that if it’s just not updated for decades at a time.”

Washington Post: How big developers like Trump benefit from web of tax breaks

October 4, 2018

[Real estate investors] can fall behind on their debts and still face fewer tax penalties for having the debt forgiven than other kinds of investors, according to Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Trump took advantage of that, Wamhoff says, when he couldn’t repay debts on his Atlantic City casinos in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Fiscal Times: What Trump’s Family Finances Tell Us About the Tax System

October 3, 2018

“The key takeaway,” said Alan Essig, director of the liberal Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, “is that the wealthy and powerful abide by a different set of rules than the rest of us. … During his presidential campaign, President Trump called for closing the types of loopholes that allow some wealthy people to get […]

The New Yorker: The Trump Family’s Tax Dodging Is Symptomatic of a Larger Problem

October 3, 2018

This experience points to an enduring scandal that goes well beyond the Trumps. “The key takeaway from the New York Times article . . . is that the wealthy and powerful abide by a different set of rules than the rest of us,” Alan Essig, the executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonpartisan […]

The Post and Courier: Some Valuable Downtown Charleston Land Now Comes with Tax Breaks

October 2, 2018

“Even if the tax breaks drive some new investment into low-income areas, this does not guarantee that these investments will ultimately benefit low-income families within the opportunity zones,” said the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “In fact, additional investment driven by opportunity zones could have the unintended effect of fueling higher real estate prices […]

Politico: Morning Tax

October 1, 2018

Today also marks 25 years since the last federal gas tax increase, which was raised to its current 18.3 cents per gallon in 1993. Plenty of people have talked about hiking the gas tax again over the last quarter-century — even potentially President Donald Trump — without much success, as Republicans have largely opposed the […]

NJ.com: Murphy Pushes Plan to Save Property Tax Breaks

September 26, 2018

Only residents of New York, Connecticut, and California deduct more from federal taxes than New Jerseyans, according the progressive Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Most of the states hit hardest send billions of dollars more to Washington than they get back in services. Read more

Law360: Permanent Tax Cuts Favor Richest in All But Three States

September 25, 2018

The second round of tax cuts passed Thursday and Friday by the U.S. House of Representatives would overwhelmingly favor the richest Americans, except for those in three high-tax states, according to… Read more

Bloomberg BNA: Understanding the Post-Tax Cuts Buybacks Surge: A Primer

September 21, 2018

But Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the liberal-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said the anger over buybacks stems from the idea that, with the passage of the tax law (Pub. L. No. 115-97), Americans “were promised something else” by lawmakers and the administration. Real wage growth, he added, is “flat as a […]

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].