Carl Davis
Carl Davis is the research director at ITEP, where he has worked since 2008. Carl works on a wide range of issues related to both state and federal tax policy. He has advised policymakers, researchers, and advocates on tax policy issues in nearly every state. Much of his work relates to the link between taxes and economic growth, and the shortcomings of dynamic scoring and supply-side economic theories.
-
media mention December 7, 2021 Tax Notes: Looking Ahead: State Tax Policy Trends To Watch Next Year
This pod cast features ITEP research director Carl Davis: https://www.forbes.com/sites/taxnotes/2021/12/07/looking-ahead-state-tax-policy-trends-to-watch-next-year/?sh=7f2a4ba02add -
report November 18, 2021 Analysis of the House of Representatives’ Build Back Better Legislation
If the bill becomes law, in 2022 federal taxes would go up for the average taxpayer among the richest one percent and down for the average taxpayer in other income groups.
-
blog November 9, 2021 Paying The Estate Tax Shouldn’t Be Optional for the Super Rich
ProPublica this year released multiple exposés revealing how the nation’s wealthiest individuals and families avoid taxes on an unimaginable scale. Most recently, it uncovered Republican and Democratic elected officials and political… -
media mention October 6, 2021 Yahoo! Finance: Democrats’ tax plan makes ‘baby steps’ toward racial wealth equity
By lifting up families at the bottom through tax credits and taxing affluent households more, Democrats can help narrow the racial wealth gap. But their latest plan may not be… -
blog October 4, 2021 State Income Tax Reform Can Bring Us Closer to Racial Equity
To pave the way for a more racially equitable future, states must move away from poorly designed, regressive policies that solidify the vast inequalities that exist today.
-
report October 4, 2021 State Income Taxes and Racial Equity: Narrowing Racial Income and Wealth Gaps with State Personal Income Taxes
10 state personal income tax reforms that offer the most promising routes toward narrowing racial income and wealth gaps through the tax code.
-
blog September 28, 2021 Reforming Federal Capital Gains Taxes Would Benefit States, Too
Congress’s action or inaction on federal tax changes under consideration in the Build Back Better plan could have important implications for states on many fronts. One critical area of note is at the foundation of income tax law: setting the definition of income that most states will use in administering their own income taxes.
-
blog September 3, 2021 Frequently Asked Questions about Proposals to Repeal the Cap on Federal Tax Deductions for State and Local Taxes (SALT)
Even though Democrats in Congress uniformly opposed the TCJA because its benefits went predominately to the rich, many Democratic lawmakers now want to give a tax cut to the rich by repealing the cap on SALT deductions.
-
report August 26, 2021 Options to Reduce the Revenue Loss from Adjusting the SALT Cap
If lawmakers are unwilling to replace the SALT cap with a new limit on tax breaks that raises revenue, then any modification they make to the cap in the current environment will lose revenue and make the federal tax code less progressive. Given this, lawmakers should choose a policy option that loses as little revenue as possible and that does the smallest amount of damage possible to the progressivity of the federal tax code.
-
media mention July 16, 2021 Bloomberg: TurboTax Maker Intuit Opts Out of IRS Free File Program
Carl Davis, director of research at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said he supports such an idea. The shift would mean the IRS could work directly with taxpayers,… -
media mention June 10, 2021 Sacramento Bee: White, Asian families have most to gain if Congress restores tax break Trump capped, report says
“Outright repeal of the SALT cap without an adequate replacement would exacerbate racial inequities in this country,” said a study from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy’s Carl Davis… -
media mention June 8, 2021 Marketplace: Why are some states experiencing a tax revenue surplus?
But according to Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, no one is swimming in cash. “A lot of states were just barely trying to… -
blog May 13, 2021 Attacks on Voting Rights, Secret Tax-Cut Negotiations in Arizona Reflect Broader Trend to Undermine Democracy
The onslaught of news about multiple states introducing or passing legislation to make it harder to vote is a clear signal that our democracy is in crisis. Decades of policymaking and judicial rulings have created a system in which the voices of the wealthy and powerful have more weight, and some lawmakers are determined to further rig the system and keep it that way.
-
blog May 12, 2021 Arizonans Voted to Tax the Rich. Now Lawmakers Want to Undo Most of That.
In 2018, Arizona teachers took part in a national wave of teacher walkouts, protesting inadequate education funding and some of the lowest teacher pay in the nation—direct results of the state’s penchant for deep tax cuts and its decision to levy some of the lowest tax rates in the country on high-income families.
-
media mention May 1, 2021 New York Times: Why a $10,000 Tax Deduction Could Hold Up Trillions in Stimulus Funds
There’s no debate that the SALT deduction goes mostly to wealthier taxpayers. About 85% of its benefits accrue to the richest 5% of households, according to an analysis by the… -
media mention April 28, 2021 MarketWatch: Some lower-tax states won big in the 2020 Census count. Are Americans moving to escape the taxman?
Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank, sees the Census results quite differently. “I really don’t see a tax story here,”… -
media mention April 21, 2021 CNBC: Black, Hispanic Families Would Benefit Less from a SALT Cap Repeal than Whites
Repealing the $10,000 state and local tax deduction cap is likely to have uneven results for Americans. In fact, Black families are 42% less likely and Hispanic families are 33%… -
media mention April 20, 2021 Forbes: Repealing The Cap On State And Local Tax Deductions Would Widen The Racial Wealth Gap, New Study Shows
As some lawmakers from high-tax Blue states push for the elimination of the Trump-era $10,000 cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions, a new study from the left-leaning Institute… -
news release April 20, 2021 SALT Cap Repeal Would Exacerbate Racial Inequities
A new ITEP analysis provides critical data for the debate over whether to repeal the $10,000 cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions. The report finds that repeal of the SALT cap without other reforms would worsen economic disparities and exacerbate racial inequities baked into the federal tax system.
-
blog April 20, 2021 SALT Cap Repeal Would Worsen Racial Income and Wealth Divides
A bipartisan group of 32 House lawmakers banded together to form the “SALT Caucus,” demanding elimination of the SALT cap. None of their arguments in favor of repeal change the fact that it would primarily benefit the rich and, according to new research, exacerbate racial income and wealth disparities.
-
report April 20, 2021 Not Worth Its SALT: Tax Cut Proposal Overwhelmingly Benefits Wealthy, White Households
A previous ITEP analysis showed the lopsided distribution of SALT cap repeal by income level. The vast majority of families would not benefit financially from repeal and most of the tax cuts would flow to families with incomes above $200,000.
This report builds on that work by using a mix of tax return and survey data within our microsimulation tax model to estimate the distribution of SALT cap repeal across race and ethnicity. It shows that repealing the SALT cap would be the latest in a long string of inequitable policies that have conspired to create the vast racial income and wealth gaps that exist today.
-
blog March 31, 2021 A New Look at Taxes and Race at the State and Local Levels
A new ITEP report reveals how different taxes have very different impacts on racial equity and unveils data for two states showcasing the consequences of their contrasting tax policy choices. In short, we find that income taxes can help narrow the racial income and wealth divides while sales taxes generally make those divides worse.
-
blog March 25, 2021 Looking at the Tax Code Through A Race Equity Lens Presents a Strong Case for Reforms
An important new book from Professor Dorothy Brown at Emory University offers a timely look at the federal tax code through the lens of racial equity. The Whiteness of Wealth:… -
media mention March 17, 2021 The Hill: Ohio AG Sues Biden Administration Over Pandemic Bill
Carl Davis, the research director for the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said that the rhetoric from the conservative attorneys general has been overblown. “There’s a lot of… -
media mention March 17, 2021 Newsweek: This Last-Minute Provision Blocks GOP Govs from Using Stimulus Money to Subsidize Tax Cuts
“Basically any tax cut done at the state level has doubled in cost,” said Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. For example, if a…