Recent Work by ITEP

State Rundown 2/14: To Couple or Not to Couple?

February 14, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

This Valentine's week finds California, Georgia, Missouri, New York, Oregon, and other states flirting with the idea of coupling to various components of the federal tax-cut bill. Meanwhile, lawmakers seeking revenue solutions to budget shortfalls in Alaska, Oklahoma, and Wyoming saw their advances spurned, and anti-tax advocates in many states have been getting mixed responses to their tax-cut proposals. And be sure to check out our "what we're reading" section to see how states are getting no love in recent federal budget developments.

A Gas Tax Hike Is the Obvious Answer to Infrastructure Funding

February 14, 2018 • By Steve Wamhoff

As part of his budget plan released Monday, President Trump offered an infrastructure proposal that he describes as a $1.5 trillion 10-year surge in infrastructure investments. The details of the proposal explain that the federal government would put up only $200 billion of this total, which the administration claims will be offset with cuts in other spending. Even this relatively meager funding amount is illusory because it would clearly be financed by cutting other federal spending — including infrastructure investments.

GOP Dilemma: Love the Tax Cut, Hate the Agency that Administers It

February 14, 2018 • By Matthew Gardner

The president’s budget proposal would cut the agency’s baseline funding from $12 billion to $11.1 billion this year. This is almost a quarter less, in inflation-adjusted terms, than the $14.4 billion the agency received in fiscal year 2010. Not surprisingly, the long, steady decline of IRS funding during this period has led to a reduction in staffing: the agency’s 2016 employee total of 77,000 was 17,000 lower than at the beginning of the decade.

Amazon Inc. Paid Zero in Federal Taxes in 2017, Gets $789 Million Windfall from New Tax Law

February 13, 2018 • By Matthew Gardner

The online retail giant has built its business model on tax avoidance, and its latest financial filing makes it clear that Amazon continues to be insulated from the nation’s tax system. In 2017, Amazon reported $5.6 billion of U.S. profits and didn’t pay a dime of federal income taxes on it. The company’s financial statement suggests that various tax credits and tax breaks for executive stock options are responsible for zeroing out the company’s tax this year.

The More Things Change: PG&E Records a Tenth Straight Year of No Federal Income Taxes

February 9, 2018 • By Matthew Gardner

In the runup to last fall’s tax debate, it was commonly observed that corporate tax reform is both easy and hard: the easy part is cutting the rate, and the hard part is paying for it by closing loopholes. The real test of Congress’ determination to achieve tax reform would be whether they would stand up to corporate lobbyists and shut down loopholes like accelerated depreciation that allow profitable companies to pay little or no income tax. As is now widely known, Congress was not especially determined: lawmakers aggressively cut the corporate rate from 35 to 21 percent, but then…

How the Latest Budget Deals Expose the Failure of “Tax Reform”

February 9, 2018 • By Richard Phillips

If there was one thing that tax reform legislation was supposed to accomplish, it was to put an end to the scandalous semiannual ritual of extending and expanding the list of the temporary provisions in the tax code, known as tax extenders. During the passage of the last tax extenders bill at the end of December 2015, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agreed that it was critical to have a tax code that provides “permanency and certainty” and to move forward with comprehensive tax reform that would decide the fate of the extenders once and for all. Unfortunately,…

State Rundown 2/8: State Responses to Federal Bill Gaining Steam

February 8, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

Several states this week are looking at ways to revamp their tax codes in response to the federal tax cut bill, with Georgia, Idaho, Maryland, Nebraska, and Vermont all actively considering proposals. Meanwhile, Connecticut, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania are working on resolving their budget shortfalls. And transportation funding is getting needed attention in Mississippi, Utah, and Wisconsin.

How Much Will Typical Middle-Class Workers Really See Their Paychecks Change?

February 3, 2018 • By Steve Wamhoff

The campaign by Republican leaders in Congress to promote their new tax law has two prongs. One is the claim that corporate income tax cuts are already trickling down to workers, which, as we have explained, is believed by basically no economists anywhere. The other prong of their campaign is to argue that the personal income tax cuts will provide a noticeable decline in withholding from paychecks that middle-class people will notice soon. At this point, it’s helpful to look at some actual data and see how small the boost in take-home pay will really be for most Americans.

How the U.S. Became a Top Secrecy Jurisdiction

February 1, 2018 • By Richard Phillips

Sometimes, ranking near No. 1 in the world is not a badge of pride. According to the Financial Secrecy Index released by the Tax Justice Network (TJN), the United States is the second largest contributor to financial secrecy in the world, placing it in the company of infamous tax havens such as Switzerland (ranked No. 1) and the Cayman Islands (ranked No. 3). Financial secrecy is enabling people to hide income from the authorities to evade taxes or financial regulation, launder profits from crime, finance terrorism, or otherwise break the law.

State Rundown 1/31: Low-Income Families’ Taxes Getting Some Much-Needed Attention

January 31, 2018 • By ITEP Staff

This week was promising for advocates of Earned Income Tax Credits (EITCs) and other tax breaks for workers and their families, which are making headway in Alabama, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Utah, and Wisconsin. The week also saw the unveiling of a tax cut plan in Missouri, a budget-balancing tax increase package in Oklahoma, the end of an unproductive film tax credit in West Virginia, and a very busy week for tax policy in Utah.