ITEP – Page 64 – Informing tax policy debate nationwide

blog July 24, 2020
Treasury Secretary Mnuchin to Unemployed Workers: Don’t Worry, Get a Bank Loan

In an explanation that can only be called richsplaining, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Thursday suggested that Congress’s delay in approving expanded unemployment benefits was no problem because banks would extend loans to people in the meantime.
blog July 22, 2020
State Rundown 7/22: The Heat Is On

Temperatures and tensions are high right now across the country as Congress debates its next pandemic response and states continue to sweat through difficult decisions. Nevada lawmakers, for example, just wrapped up a special session during which they came within one vote of a proposed tax increase but ultimately chose to balance their shortfall through only funding cuts. But advocates in many states, including California, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island are trying to light a fire under lawmakers to encourage them to enact progressive tax increases on their wealthiest households.
blog July 21, 2020
Biden Proposes to Fund Child Care and Elder Care by Shutting Down Tax Breaks for Real Estate Investors

On Tuesday, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden announced a $775 billion proposal to expand care options for children and elderly people, suggesting that the cost would be at least partly offset by paring back tax breaks for real estate investors.

Bigtime real estate investors are simply unaccustomed to operating without government subsidies provided through the tax code.
blog July 21, 2020
New ITEP Report on Trump’s Payroll Tax Holiday

While the White House hasn’t clarified what it is proposing, we know that a payroll tax cut would not be well-targeted. In a new report, ITEP estimates the effects of suspending Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes for employees and employers from September 1 through the end of the year. We find that 64 percent of the benefits would go to the richest 20 percent of Americans while 24 percent of the benefits would go to the richest 1 percent.
report July 21, 2020
An Updated Analysis of a Potential Payroll Tax Holiday

ITEP estimates that if Congress and the president eliminated all Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes paid by employers and employees from Sept. 1 through the end of the year, 64 percent of the benefits would go the richest 20 percent of taxpayers and 24 percent of the benefits would go to the richest 1 percent of taxpayers, as illustrated in the table below. The total cost of this hypothetical proposal would be $336 billion.
blog July 17, 2020
SALT Cap Repeal Has No Place in COVID-19 Legislation: National and State-by-State Data

The Trump-GOP tax law enacted at the end of 2017 includes a $10,000 cap on the amount of state and local taxes (SALT) that people can deduct on their federal tax returns, and this is one of the few limits the law places on tax breaks for high-income people. Unfortunately, it is also the provision that some Democrats are most determined to remove.
report July 16, 2020
Trade Deals Aren't Enough: Fixing the Tax Code to Bring American Jobs Back

We all need the public sector to protect public health, keep us safe, educate our children, and much more. Companies, particularly multinational corporations, could not function without the legal, infrastructure, financial, regulatory, health, and transportation resources that the government provides.
blog July 16, 2020
State Rundown 7/16: States Still Reluctant to Talk Taxes

With tax day finally coming at the federal level and in many states this week, policymakers in Nevada and New Jersey began to talk about revenue solutions to their revenue shortfalls, even if they fell well short of wholeheartedly backing needed reforms. Like their counterparts in most states, they remain primarily focused on temporary solutions to their short-term emergencies. Still, advocates in these and other states continue to push for more fundamental fixes to their inadequate and upside-down tax codes, including a new campaign for better tax policy in Massachusetts and efforts to rein in tax subsidies and loopholes in Ohio and elsewhere.
blog July 15, 2020
New Prosperity Now Report Identifies Upside-Down Tax Incentives
Ahead of this year’s delayed Tax Day, our partners at Prosperity Now released a powerful report providing a comprehensive overview of many of the ways…
report July 14, 2020
Who Pays Taxes in America in 2020?

Having a sound understanding of who pays taxes and how much is a particularly relevant question now as the nation grapples with a health and economic crisis that is devastating lower-income families and requiring all levels of government to invest more in keeping individuals, families and communities afloat. This year, the share of all taxes paid by the richest 1 percent of Americans (24.3 percent) will be just a bit higher than the share of all income going to this group (20.9 percent). The share of all taxes paid by the poorest fifth of Americans (2 percent) will be just a bit lower than the share of all income going to this group (2.8 percent).