New Report Outlines Seven Progressive Revenue-Raising Options

ITEP today released a report that charts a path for Congress to enact progressive, revenue-raising tax policies that would target high-income households and reverse the damage from TCJA and prior rounds of tax cuts that disproportionately benefited the well-off.

Progressive Revenue-Raising Options outlines seven options that raise revenue mostly by eliminating special breaks and loopholes that benefit the wealthy. The options include:

1. Repeal TCJA’s 20 percent deduction for pass-through business income.
2. Replace TCJA’s cap on SALT deductions with a dollar cap on all itemized deductions.
3. Repeal tax breaks for capital gains.
4. Reverse TCJA’s cut in the estate tax and further strengthen it.
5. Curb accelerated depreciation.
6. Eliminate tax breaks for offshore corporate profits.
7. Enact a 1 percent wealth tax on the top 0.1 percent’s net worth.

The report looks at two ideas that elected officials have formally proposed—expanding the estate tax and instituting a wealth tax.

“The 2017 tax law was not tax reform. It was a package of tax cuts that mostly benefited corporations and the wealthy,” said Steve Wamhoff, ITEP federal policy director and an author of the report. “Real tax reform would shut down the special breaks and loopholes for the wealthiest few and produce revenue that can be invested to build broader prosperity.”

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