Select Media Mentions
Roll Call: As GOP Tax Overhaul Shapes Up, Democrats Push to End the Tax Return
April 28, 2017
Groups like Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, which advocates a flat tax, have also opposed return-free filing, saying it would allow the IRS to “intimidate” taxpayers into paying whatever is on the pre-filled return. Richard Phillips, a senior policy analyst at the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said anti-tax organizations also want people to find doing […]
Crain’s Chicago Business: How Much Do Illinois Companies Pay in Taxes?
April 28, 2017
Illinois’ Fortune 500 companies are paying less and less in state corporate taxes—and sometimes, almost nothing at all. A new report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found certain corporations are finding ways to shelter much of their profit from state taxes. The eight-year study looked at 240 Fortune 500 companies from 2008 […]
CBS News: Trump’s Tax Cut Promise to Pay for Themselves. So Will They?
April 28, 2017
The most durable effect of the 1981 cuts was to lay the groundwork for a tax reform in 1986, which was intended not to raise revenue but to clean up the tax code. In the century-old history of the income tax, the 1986 effort gets high marks from left and right alike as the only […]
CNBC: Companies Holding $2.6 Trillion Pile of Cash Offshore
April 28, 2017
The top companies in terms of overseas holdings are Apple, Pfizer and Microsoft, according to a report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. General Electric and IBM round out the top five. Read more
Fast Company: At Last, Silicon Valley May Have Found a Trump Proposal to Like–Hist Tax Plan
April 27, 2017
Apple, for one, would likely be happy about a one-time repatriation of earnings, depending on the details of the plan. In 2016, the European Union, after a lengthy investigation, ruled that Apple parking earnings at its Irish subsidiaries (to avoid paying U.S. taxes) amounts to the tech giant receiving “illegal state aid” from Ireland. As […]
International Business Times: Winners and Losers in Trump Tax Plan
April 27, 2017
On the state level, 240 Fortune 500 firms avoided paying $126 billion in income taxes between 2008 and 2015, a study released Thursday by the non-profit Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found. Of those 240 companies, 92 avoided state income taxes for at least one year during that period, and 49 paid no state income […]
Governing: This Week in Public Finance
April 27, 2017
She’s right that sales tax exemptions are political. But to be fair, which exemptions aren’t? Moreoever, taxes themselves are unavoidably political. They speak to the policies and values held by each government. For example, four of the top 10 states that the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy ranks as the most regressive also don’t exempt […]
Center for Public Integrity: Big Tax Cuts for the Rich, Less for the Poor
April 26, 2017
Others see it differently. The Tax Foundation is one of the leading proponents of tax cuts that disproportionately favor the wealthy over low-income families, said Meg Wiehe, director of programs at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a liberal tax policy group that receives much of its financial support from the Ford Foundation, the […]
The American Prospect: Trump’s Big Tax Cut Is Unadulterated Trickle-Down Fundamentalism
April 26, 2017
For instance, a report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy that examined the corporate tax filings of 258 Fortune 500 companies from 2008 to 2015 provided a snapshot of the realities of corporate taxation. The findings show that some of the country’s biggest and most profitable companies pay nowhere near the 35 percent […]
New York Daily News: President Trump’s Tax Plan Ignores Campaign Promises to Help Middle Class, Reduce National Debt
April 26, 2017
Nor do they jibe with his and his presidential transition team’s guarantee that there wouldn’t be a big tax cut for wealthy people — now-Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin promised on CNBC in late November that “there will be no absolute tax cut for the upper class” — or how it would be paid for. Trump […]
The Seattle Times: Washington State Relies on a Rotten Tax System
April 24, 2017
Poor people across the country pay a higher percentage of their income in state and local taxes than do wealthier people, but Washington is the worst offender in that regard. A report by the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that in our state the 20 percent of households with the lowest income […]
The Boston Globe: We Know This Sounds Crazy, But GE Could Help Fix Our Unfair Tax Code
April 21, 2017
Don’t worry. This isn’t yet another screed calling you out as the king of all corporate tax dodgers. By now, most people probably have a general understanding that you’ve been both aggressive and effective in reducing what you owe Uncle Sam over the years, though I suspect few appreciate just how effective. If there is […]
Vox: Undocumented Immigrants Pay Taxes Too: Here’s How They Do It
April 19, 2017
Unauthorized workers aren’t eligible for benefits like the earned income tax credit — which is what the green box on the screen was warning Gonzalez about. Nor can they get Social Security or Medicare. But the IRS still wants unauthorized immigrants to file their taxes, and many of them do. The best estimates from the […]
On the Economy Podcast: Inclusive immigration policies
April 18, 2017
Episode #7 of the On the Economy podcast, on the fiscal and economic impacts of immigration, is yours for the clicking. Our guests–Erica Williams and Meg Wiehe, take us through their timely, important research about the benefits of inclusive immigration policies for unauthorized immigrants. And violinist virtuoso Hilary Hahn “joins” us (I can dream, can’t […]
Forbes: A Tax Day Note to Corporate America: Pay Your Fair Share
April 18, 2017
Of course, few, if any, corporations actually pay taxes at that rate. Earlier this spring, a study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) showed that, between 2008 and 2015, Fortune 500 corporations paid an effective federal tax rate of 21.2% on average. Many pay far less, and some pay nothing at all. […]
Mother Jones: Thanks to Trump, These Taxpayers May Avoid the IRS
April 18, 2017
There is a widely held misconception that undocumented immigrants do not pay taxes. However, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a Washington, D.C. think tank, roughly half of undocumented immigrants pay taxes using the IRS’ Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITIN) program. The program is intended for nonimmigrant visa holders, contract workers, investors, and students. But many […]
The Fiscal Times: Tax-Free Shopping on Amazon Is Over
April 11, 2017
As recently as 2011, Amazon was collecting sales tax in just five states, home to 11 percent of the country’s population, according to Carl Davis of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. But a few years ago, as Amazon began to pursue a strategy of expanding its network of distribution and data centers to improve its […]
Charleston Gazette-Mail: Cutting WV Income Tax Likely to Backfire
April 11, 2017
There are nine states with no income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, Wyoming, New Hampshire and Tennessee. Only Texas has seen job growth — as a result of being the center of the oil industry. The others have not; job growth has trailed population growth in the other eight. This is based […]
Atlanta Journal Constitution: Is a flat tax right for Georgia?
April 11, 2017
That’s the problem Tharpe has with studies like the Wallethub.com survey. That 50-state look at state taxes found Georgia has a tax burden of 8.2 percent of individual personal income. The Washington, DC,-based financial services website ranked Georgia slightly better than Arizona and just behind Washington state. When I tweeted out those findings, Tharpe was quick to […]
Connecticut Post: These two big Connecticut companies avoided taxes for years
April 11, 2017
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy in Washington, D.C. analyzed 258 profitable Fortune 500 companies and found that 100 of them paid no taxes at least one year between 2008 and 2015. Eighteen of these corporations, including General Electric and Priceline, paid zero total income tax over the eight-year period, the study showed. […]
The Minneapolis Start-Trubine: The Tax Fairness Gap is gone
April 11, 2017
But if states can compete on tax fairness, Minnesota is positioned to do well. The national Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy ranked Minnesota the fifth-fairest state in the country in 2014 for taxing those at higher incomes at nearly the same effective rate as the poor. It praised Minnesota not only for raising its […]
Chicago Tribune: Family finances: How a border tax would affect you
April 11, 2017
But economists at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonpartisan research group, say the adjustment overall could take years, and in the meantime, at least some portion of the tax would be passed on to consumers. Read more
Minnesota Post: Health of Twin Cities lakes at risk from salt
April 11, 2017
The national Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy ranked Minnesota the fifth-fairest state in the country in 2014 for taxing those at higher incomes at nearly the same effective rate as the poor.” Read more
Boston Globe: Some See Risks Rising for Undocumented Who Pay Their Taxes
April 2, 2017
In total, they paid $23.6 billion in federal taxes, according to the Taxpayer Advocate Service, an arm of the Internal Revenue Service. Separately, undocumented workers pay nearly $12 billion in state and local taxes per year, according to a March report by the nonprofit Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy in Washington, D.C. In Massachusetts […]
The San Diego Union Tribune: Sempra has paid no corporate taxes in recent years … and it’s all legal
March 31, 2017
According to figures compiled by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), a left-of-center group based in Washington D.C., between 2008 and 2015 Sempra earned $7 billion in profit but actually received $34 million back in federal taxes, equating to an effective tax rate of minus 0.5 percent. “Sempra looks to me like a […]
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