New York
Politico: Getting to be extenders time
November 30, 2015
“YOUR CYBER MONDAY TAX UPDATE: Carl Davis of the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy notes that this year will be the first holiday season that Amazon — in the midst of a massive national expansion of its distribution network — collects sales tax in a majority of states. In fact, ITEP notes that […]
CBS News: Why Pfizer is so bent on lowering its tax rate
November 2, 2015
“According to Matthew Gardner, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the New York-based company has 151 subsidiaries in known tax havens such as the Cayman Islands. Pfizer also claims to have lost $16 billion in the U.S. over the past five years while earning about $80 billion overseas. Between 2010 and […]
The U.S. Census Bureau released data in September showing that the share of Americans living in poverty remains high. In 2014, the national poverty rate was 14.8 percent - statistically unchanged from the previous year. However, the poverty rate remains 2.3 percentage points higher than it was in 2007, before the Great Recession, indicating that recent economic gains have not yet reached all households and that there is much room for improvement. The 2014 measure translates to more than 46.7 million - more than 1 in 7 - Americans living in poverty. Most state poverty rates also held steady between…
New York Daily News: #Undocumoney Campaign to Show How Much Undocumented Immigrants Contribute to U.S Economy
September 10, 2015
“According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the over 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States collectively paid $11.84 billion in state and local taxes in 2012.” Read more
Policy Mic: What Republicans Don’t Want You to Know About “Securing the Border”
August 24, 2015
New York’s place on that list is especially salient given its place as the largest of the estimated 200 “sanctuary cities” across the country. The designation reflects a decision by local governments to protect undocumented immigrants from federal law enforcement. This makes it easier to collect taxes — undocumented immigrants paid $11.84 billion in state […]
Slate: Don’t Fall for Back-to-School Tax Holidays
August 14, 2015
If shoppers are simply shifting their spending to save on taxes, that means the states are losing revenue. That’s certainly the position of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonpartisan think tank that estimates the popular break will cost the states offering it $300 million this year. “Revenues lost through sales tax holidays […]
Sales Tax Holidays: An Ineffective Alternative to Real Sales Tax Reform
July 22, 2015 • By Lisa Christensen Gee
Lawmakers in many states have enacted "sales tax holidays" (at least 17 states will hold them in 2015), to provide a temporary break on paying the tax on purchases of clothing, computers and other items. While these holidays may seem to lessen the regressive impacts of the sales tax, their benefits are minimal. This policy brief examines the many problems associated with sales tax holidays and concludes that they have more political than policy benefits.
New York Mag: Rick Perry, Republicans, and the African-American Vote
July 9, 2015
Empowering state and local governments would make African-Americans more vulnerable to the whims of the very governments that have served them poorly. The state and local tax base is highly regressive, with Perry’s Texas being among the worst offenders. (The poorest 20 percent of Texans pay 12.5 percent of their income in state and local […]
The Journal News: Raising the Sales Tax, for Better or Worse
July 7, 2015
The downside, not expressed by City Hall, is that sales taxes are regressive — meaning they hurt the poorest citizens the most. That’s because the tax, obviously, only applies to money spent and not money saved. Since the poor tend to save little or not all, they take a greater financial hit. According to a […]
Read this report in PDF form Introduction For years, academics and transportation experts have been discussing the possibility of taxing drivers for each mile they travel on the nation’s roads. This “vehicle miles traveled tax” (VMT tax) could either supplement or replace the existing gas tax as the primary method of funding transportation infrastructure. To […]
Washington Post: States are Racing to See Who Can Give Rich People a Bigger Tax Break on Their Yachts
June 22, 2015
It’s true that lower taxes might bring new customers into the market, which would be great for the yacht industry. Yet every dollar spent on new boats is a dollar that a rich customer isn’t spending on something else. Favoritism for yacht manufacturers and dealers helps them only at the expense of all the other […]
Local Progress: Progressive Policies for Raising Municipal Revenue
June 16, 2015
This report lays out a set of policy and political interventions that cities, regions, and states can make to increase municipal revenue and to make their collections more progressive. Cities have historically suffered enormous budget shortfalls and after the Great Recession, available funds depleted even more drastically. Read the full report here.
New York Times: Kansas Tax Cutting Model Tarnished by Sales Tax Increase
June 15, 2015
Matthew Gardner, executive director of the left-leaning, Washington-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy said Kansas’ experience makes it more difficult for other states to pursue aggressive income tax cuts. In South Carolina, Republican Gov. Nikki Haley couldn’t pass income tax cuts even after declaring, “We are not doing what Kansas did.” “It’s clearly a […]
The News-Herald: Amazon’s Ohio Sales Tax Collection Seen As Way To ‘Level Playing Field,’ Close Tax Loophole
June 9, 2015
Some states, however, have decided not to wait for the federal government to make the change. So far, 10 states have taken their own limited steps to expand the number of retailers that must collect sales taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. New York was first, enacting legislation in 2008 requiring […]
Fiscal Policy Institute: Property Tax Relief for Low- and Middle-Income Property New Yorkers Must Remain a Priority
May 28, 2015
Those making the least income relative to other New Yorkers would benefit more from the proposed circuit breaker than from a STAR rebate. Some 40 percent of taxpayers with incomes below $19,000 (the poorest fifth of New Yorkers) would receive a circuit breaker refund, according to an analysis of the governor’s proposal by the Institute […]
Issues with Taxing Marijuana at the State Level
May 6, 2015 • By Carl Davis, Richard Phillips
Read as a PDF. Table of Contents Introduction Why Tax Marijuana? Designing a State Tax on Marijuana How Much Revenue Would Marijuana Legalization Generate for States Factors that Could Negatively Impact Marijuana Revenue Factors that Could Positively Impact Marijuana Revenue Conclusion Endnotes Charts and Text Boxes Current Approaches to Taxing Retail Marijuana Sales How Should […]
NY Daily News: Corporate giants often get huge tax breaks, while poor, undocumented immigrants have paid billions in state taxes
April 20, 2015
Yes, the unauthorized immigrant population, among the poorest and most vulnerable in New York State, does its part when it comes to taxes, according to a report by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (itepnet.org), a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that works on federal, state and local tax policy issues. The report, that covers […]
Undocumented Immigrants’ State & Local Tax Contributions (2015)
April 15, 2015 • By Matthew Gardner, Meg Wiehe
This report was updated February 2016 Read as a PDF. (Includes Full Appendix of State-by-State Data) Report Landing Page In the public debates over federal immigration reform, sufficient and accurate information about the tax contributions of undocumented immigrants is often lacking. The reality is the 11.4 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States pay billions […]
The Citizen: New York Taxes Tough for Rich and Poor Residents
March 26, 2015
WalletHub used data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy 2015 report to calculate the tax burdens — which included sales, property and income tax. Read more
Gotham Gazette: Separating Fact from Fiction on the Dream Act
March 16, 2015
According to a study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, undocumented immigrants contributed an estimated $744,276,000 New York State taxes in 2010. At the federal level, the Social Security Administration each year keeps $6 billion to $7 billion in social security contributions from W-2s that cannot be matched with a correct social security […]
The Albany Times Union: Bad But Could Be Worse
March 11, 2015
New York is regularly ranked as one of the worst states in the nation for taxes. But a new study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that New York’s tax policies are actually some of the best for average people. That’s because some tax structures grab a larger percentage of take-home pay of middle- […]
Fiscal Policy Institute: Policy Brief: Property Tax Relief (Circuit Breaker)
March 6, 2015
Those at the bottom of the income scale [in New York] would benefit most—62 percent of homeowners and 37 percent of renters with incomes below $19,000 would receive a circuit breaker refund according to an analysis of the governor’s proposal by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Some 27 percent of homeowners and renters […]
Marketwatch: 10 Biggest Financial-Market Events This Week
March 2, 2015
One of the most popular MarketWatch articles this week was 10 states with the worst taxes for average Americans, based on a report called “Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States,” released by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). According to ITEP’s data, as reviewed by 24/7 […]
New York Times: States Consider Increasing Taxes on the Poor, Raising Them on the Rich
February 13, 2015
While the bottom fifth of earners pay more than 10 percent of their income in state and local taxes, the top 1 percent pays closer to 5 percent, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates. Percentage of income is, of course, only one way to measure the tax burden — in sheer dollar terms, […]
Bloomberg: Will State Legislatures Pass Gas Tax Hikes This Year?
February 11, 2015
However, the kind of funding structure that Maryland put in place has been called good policy by organizations like the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), a non-profit, non-partisan research organization in Washington, D.C., because the inflation adjustment allows the revenue’s buying power to keep up with transportation expenses over time. Flat-rate taxes do […]
