Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP)

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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 […]

Chicago Magazine: Illinois Is a Few Elections Away From a Graduated Income Tax

September 21, 2018

Illinois has one of the most regressive tax systems in the nation — and politicians are taking notice. Under our system, the burden of taxation falls disproportionately on those least able to pay it. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, Illinois is one of the “Terrible Ten Most Regressive State & Local Tax Systems,” clocking in […]

The Free Press: Think Tank Releases Blueprint to Fully Fund Education, Medicaid & Lower Property Taxes

September 20, 2018

Tax cuts passed by the Maine Legislature and Gov. Paul LePage over the past eight years will cost the state $864 million in revenue in the next biennium, according to an analysis by the Maine Center for Economic Policy and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. At the same time the state continues to ignore its legal obligations to fully fund education, Medicaid expansion and revenue sharing.

The Inquisitor: Amazon Proposal to Cage Warehouse Workers Criticized

September 14, 2018

“For states contemplating tax incentives for Amazon, the salient question is: what do you give a tax avoider who already has everything?,” Matthew Gardner, senior fellow at Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, asked, after explaining how Amazon managed to make more than $5 billion in 2017, without paying a dime of federal income taxes. […]

Politico Morning Tax: Let’s Talk SALT

September 12, 2018

Cuomo is far from the only Democratic governor or lawmaker to unload on the SALT cap as, essentially, a broadside against progressive states. But at least one liberal think tank is calling for the limits to stay in place, even as it continues to denounce the TCJA as a giveaway to the wealthy. “Outright repeal […]

The Washington Post: GOP Pushes for New $2 Trillion Round of Tax Cuts

September 11, 2018

Democrats said the GOP’s second round of tax cuts would punish the poor and the middle class, arguing that they will provide a pretext for later spending cuts to entitlement programs that help the elderly. The richest 1 percent of Americans would see an average $24,130 cut from extending the individual tax cuts, compared with […]

Education Week: How a Proposed Tax Rule Could Hurt School Vouchers

September 11, 2018

Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed in 2017, wealthy residents in states such as New York and California face sizable increases in their federal tax bills because of a $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions they can make on their federal returns. Democratic lawmakers allege the so-called SALT-cap unfairly targets left-leaning […]

Seattle Times: Is a State Like Washington with No Income Tax Better or Worse?

September 11, 2018

These taxes place an unfair burden on the poor, according to research from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The reason is the lowest earners in the state devote the lion’s share of their take-home pay to buying things that are subject to sales taxes. The wealthy, who can save a chunk of their […]

The Journal News: Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Anti-Trump Tax Plan Crumbling in Face of IRS Regulations

September 11, 2018

Similar programs give state tax credits on 100 percent of the donations in states such as Alabama, Georgia, Arizona and South Carolina. It’s a system that has proved profitable for savvy taxpayers, said Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Read more

Politico: A SALT Shake up

September 6, 2018

So what happens now after this new clarification? “Under the right circumstances, some business owners are going to keep getting more back in tax cuts than they ever contributed to these tax credit programs,” said Carl Davis of the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “They’ll be stacking state tax credits and federal write-offs […]

WRAL: Meg Wiehe: Capping North Carolina’s top income tax rate isn’t good for our communities

September 4, 2018

ITEP Deputy Director Meg Wiehe writes for WRAL.com that it would be unwise to constitutionally cap the North Carolina state income tax rate, pointing out that school funding in the state is already down and faltering revenues in other states have led to teacher pay crises and strikes. 

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