• blog  December 16, 2019

    More of the Same: Corporate Tax Avoidance Hasn't Changed Much Under Trump-GOP Tax Law

    A new report from ITEP released today shows that, based on the first year of financial reports released by companies operating under the new tax law, tax avoidance appears to be every bit as much of a problem under the new tax system as it was before the Trump tax law took effect.

  • report  December 16, 2019

    Corporate Tax Avoidance in the First Year of the Trump Tax Law

    Profitable Fortune 500 companies avoided $73.9 billion in taxes under the first year of the Trump-GOP tax law. The study includes financial filings by 379 Fortune 500 companies that were profitable in 2018; it excludes companies that reported a loss.

  • blog  December 12, 2019

    New ITEP Reports Call for the Repeal of Opportunity Zones and Urge States to Decouple

    Two new ITEP reports lay bare the irreparable flaws of the federal Opportunity Zones program, created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law by President Trump in 2017.

  • brief  December 12, 2019

    Opportunity Zones Bolster Investors’ Bottom Lines Rather than Economic or Racial Equity

    This policy brief provides an overview of how opportunity zones are designed and highlights some of the flaws of the policy, including the detrimental impact opportunity zones have on communities of color.

  • report  December 12, 2019

    States Should Decouple from Costly Federal Opportunity Zones and Reject Look-Alike Programs

    Post enactment of TCJA, lawmakers in most states needed to decide how to respond to the creation of this new program. Given the shortcomings of the federal Opportunity Zones program and its added potential costs to states, the most prudent course of action is three-pronged: States should move quickly to decouple; states should reject look-alike programs; and lawmakers should make investments directly into economically distressed areas.

  • blog  December 11, 2019

    House Democrats’ Latest Bill on SALT Deductions Would Mean Bigger Tax Cuts for the Rich

    ITEP estimates show that if the House Democrats’ proposal was in effect in 2022, it would have a net cost of $81 billion in that year alone. The estimates also show that 51 percent of the benefits would go to the richest 1 percent of taxpayers in the U.S. Clearly, lawmakers concerned about the SALT cap need to go back to the drawing board.

  • blog  December 10, 2019

    New Report from ITEP Explores the Stock Options Tax Dodge

    Earlier this year, Amazon and Netflix made headlines when ITEP reported findings that these and at least 58 other companies paid no federal income taxes in 2018. One of the tax breaks they use to manage this feat is related to stock options. Some companies saved hundreds of millions, and in some cases more than a billion dollars, in taxes in 2018 alone with this break. It’s time for Congress to eliminate the stock options tax dodge.

  • report  December 10, 2019

    How Congress Can Stop Corporations from Using Stock Options to Dodge Taxes

    The stock option rules in effect today create a problem because they allow corporations to report a much larger expense for this compensation to the IRS than they report to investors. The result is that corporations can report larger profits to investors but smaller profits to the IRS, undermining the fundamental fairness of the tax system.

  • blog  December 9, 2019

    Legal Cannabis and a Tax Cut, Too

    A new ITEP report explains that an income tax cut for cannabis businesses embedded in the MORE Act is probably larger than the new 5 percent sales tax. This means that the average cannabis retailer—and its customers—could expect to pay LESS tax if the MORE Act is signed into law. Congress might have good reasons for structuring legalization this way, but it is an underappreciated aspect of the bill that should be made clearer as this debate progresses.

  • report  December 9, 2019

    Cannabis Legalization: Tax Cut or Tax Hike?

    Understanding the full tax consequences of cannabis legalization requires evaluating not only the excise taxes proposed in most legalization bills, but also the effects on the federal income tax liability of cannabis businesses.