• blog  February 4, 2020

    Trump Already Did Tax Cuts 2.0… For Corporations

    If President Trump puts forth another tax proposal this year, as he is hinting, it will be his third. The second round, already costing the U.S. Treasury billions, was implemented largely out of the public’s view.

  • blog  February 4, 2020

    Washington Is Finally Having the Right Conversation about Taxes

    Presidential candidates and some elected officials are finally talking about bold tax policy ideas that would increase taxes and raise revenue. This is a dramatic shift from when a radical, right-wing narrative dominated the public debate. Republicans redefined “fiscal responsibility” as fewer taxes and less government, peddled supply-side economic theories, and denied the clear evidence that tax cuts were adding to our nation’s deficits.

  • blog  January 31, 2020

    From 0% to 1.2%: Amazon Lauds Its Minuscule Effective Federal Income Tax Rate 

    If we focus on the taxes the company paid in 2019, we see an effective federal income tax rate of just 1.2 percent. And since the company enjoyed federal income tax rebates in 2017 and 2018, this means that over the last three years Amazon has paid zero on $29 billion of U.S. pretax income.

  • blog  January 30, 2020

    State Rundown 1/30: Flip-Flops and Steady Marches in State Tax Debates

    State tax and budget debates can turn on a dime sometimes, as in Utah this past week, where lawmakers unanimously repealed a tax package they had just approved in a special session last month. Delaware lawmakers are hoping to avoid the similarly abrupt end to their last effort to improve their Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) by crafting a bill that Gov. John Carney will have no reason to unexpectedly veto as he did two years ago. But at other times, these debates just can’t change fast enough, as in New Hampshire and Virginia, where leaders are searching for revenue to address long-standing transportation needs, and in Hawaii, Nebraska, and North Carolina, where education funding issues remain painfully unresolved.

  • blog  January 29, 2020

    ITEP Urges IRS to End SALT Workaround Scheme for Businesses 

    A new IRS proposal could once again allow wealthy business owners to use state charitable tax credits–including tax credits for donating to support private and religious K-12 schools–to dodge the federal government’s $10,000 cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions.

  •  January 29, 2020

    ITEP Comments and Recommendations on REG-107431-19

    Comments regarding the possibility that owners of passthrough businesses may be able to circumvent the $10,000 SALT deduction cap of section 164(b)(6) by recharacterizing the nondeductible portion of their state and local income tax payments as deductible expenses associated with carrying on a trade or business.

  • blog  January 24, 2020

    GOP Legacy on IRS Administration: Auditing Mississippi, not Microsoft

    Money doesn’t buy happiness—but it can buy immunity from the reach of Uncle Sam. The IRS is outgunned in cases against corporate giants because that’s how Republican leaders want it to be. They have systematically assaulted the agency’s enforcement capacity through decades of funding cuts. Instead of saving money, these cuts have cost billions: each dollar spent on the IRS results in several dollars of tax revenue collected.

  • blog  January 22, 2020

    State Rundown 1/22: “Only Light Can Do That”

    This week as Americans celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s messages of resisting oppression and fighting for progress, state policymakers can look to some bright spots where tax and budget debates are bending toward justice. Among those highlights, Hawaii leaders are considering improvements to minimum wage policy, early childhood education, and affordable housing; Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly is seeking to reduce sales taxes applied to food and restore the state’s grocery tax credit; and advocates in Connecticut and Maryland are pushing for meaningful progressive tax reforms.

  • blog  January 17, 2020

    Why I've Joined the Fight for Tax Justice: Amy Hanauer

    After years of watching tax policy increasingly leave communities behind, at ITEP I’ll have the chance to work with local, state and national partners on policy solutions. I’m prepared to push for a tax system that can better deliver economic, climate and racial justice; for a public sector that can prepare our kids and our grid for 2020 and beyond; and for an America that works for all of us, whether we were born in Nebraska or Hawaii, Detroit or Miami.

  • blog  January 15, 2020

    State Rundown 1/15: State Tax Proposals Are All Over the Map

    State tax and budget debates have arrived in a big way, with proposals from every part of the country and everywhere on the spectrum from…