Recent Work by ITEP

State Rundown 9/6: Most Statehouses Quiet, Many Pondering Harvey’s Impacts

September 7, 2017 • By ITEP Staff

It's been a quiet week for tax policy in most states, though lawmakers are still making noise in Pennsylvania, where a budget agreement is still needed, and in Wisconsin, where legislators are searching for the will to raise revenue for the state's ailing transportation infrastructure. In our "What We're Reading" section you'll find interesting reading on the fiscal fallout of Hurricane Harvey, as well as an in-depth series on how states' disaster response needs are likely to continue to increase.

New ITEP Report: Trump’s Proposed Territorial Tax System Would Increase Corporate Tax Dodging

September 6, 2017 • By Steve Wamhoff

While promoting his ideas for overhauling our tax code today in North Dakota, President Trump said that Congress should adopt a territorial tax system which, he argued, would result in more investment in the United States. You’re not alone if you’re not sure what “territorial” means in this context. It’s a euphemism used by some politicians to describe a proposal that will be wildly unpopular once voters understand what it really means.

Turning Loopholes into Black Holes: Trump’s Territorial Tax Proposal Would Increase Corporate Tax Avoidance

September 6, 2017 • By Matthew Gardner, Steve Wamhoff

The problem of offshore tax avoidance by American corporations could grow much worse under President Donald Trump’s proposal to adopt a “territorial” tax system, which would exempt the offshore profits of American corporations from U.S. taxes. This change would increase the already substantial benefits American corporations obtain when they use accounting gimmicks to make their profits appear to be earned in a foreign country that has no corporate income tax or has one that is extremely low or easy to avoid.

Tax Reform Principles Released by GOP in August Raise More Questions Than They Answer

August 31, 2017 • By Steve Wamhoff

Before Wednesday, you may have forgotten about tax reform given that President Trump’s remarks on the Charlottesville white supremacist rally, as well as the first U.S. solar eclipse since 1979, and Hurricane Harvey, overshadowed most other news. But Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, which in theory is the starting place for any tax legislation, certainly tried to get the public to focus on their vision for tax reform. They released a “reason for tax reform” each day in August. Unfortunately, these “reasons” are a combination of ideas that their proposals fail to address and misleading assertions.

Trump (Sort of) Used Our Data on Corporate Tax Avoidance, But He Missed the Point

August 31, 2017 • By Matthew Gardner

On Wednesday, reporters waiting to write about President Trump’s much-ballyhooed tax reform speech in Missouri received a fact sheet from the White House informing them that, “Fortune 500 corporations are holding more than $2.6 trillion in profits offshore to avoid $767 billion in Federal taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.”

State Rundown 8/31: Modernizing Taxes is Sometimes a Sprint, Sometimes a Marathon

August 31, 2017 • By ITEP Staff

Tax and budget debates are progressing at different paces in different parts of the country this week. In Connecticut and Wisconsin, lawmakers hope to finally settle their budget and tax differences soon. In South Dakota, a court case that could finally enable states to enforce their sales taxes on online retailers inches slowly closer to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Sorting Through the Fallacies in Trump’s Missouri Tax Speech

August 30, 2017 • By Steve Wamhoff

President Donald Trump spoke in Springfield, Missouri today about the need for a tax reform that provides “more jobs and higher wages for America” and “tax relief for middle-class families.” But the proposals the Trump administration has released so far would cut taxes for companies moving investment offshore and would provide most tax cuts to the richest one percent of taxpayers.

Private School Voucher Credits Offer a Windfall to Wealthy Investors in Some States

August 30, 2017 • By Carl Davis

State lawmakers who want to send public dollars to private schools have devised a shrewd tactic for getting around political and constitutional obstacles that make it difficult to do so. These lawmakers found a way to pay high-income taxpayers to fund those schools on states’ behalf, sometimes even offering those taxpayers a tidy profit in […]

State Rundown 8/23: Few Lingering Budget Debates Cannot Linger Much Longer

August 23, 2017 • By ITEP Staff

This week, Oklahoma lawmakers learned they'll need to enter a special session to balance their budget and that they'll likely face a lawsuit over their low funding of public education. Pennsylvania's budget stalemate is also coming to a head as the state literally runs out of funds to pay its bills. And Amazon's tax practices are in the news again as the company has been sued in South Carolina.

GOP Leaders Tout Corporate Tax Cuts at Boeing and AT&T, Companies that Already Have Single-Digit Tax Rates

August 23, 2017 • By Matthew Gardner

House Speaker Paul Ryan plans to visit a Boeing factory in Washington State tomorrow to promote the GOP’s ideas for tax reform, which include a deep cut in the corporate tax rate, while House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady is bringing the same message today to employees of AT&T in Dallas. What is unclear is how much lower taxes for these companies can possibly go.