Matthew Gardner
Matt Gardner is a senior fellow at ITEP where he has worked since 1998. He previously served as ITEP’s executive director from 2006 to 2016. Matt’s work focuses on federal, state and local tax systems, with a particular emphasis on the impact of tax policies on low- and moderate-income taxpayers. He uses ITEP’s microsimulation model to produce economic projections and analyses on the effects of current and proposed federal and state tax and budget policies.
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media mention June 20, 2018 USA Today: After Losing Fight to Levy ‘Amazon tax,’ Seattle Is Back to Square One on Helping Homeless
The construction pause “was a concrete action as opposed to just a threat,” said Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonpartisan, nonprofit in Washington,… -
media mention May 25, 2018 Politifact: Scott Dawson distorts Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey’s Grant Funding
But Matt Gardner, senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said there is a distinction between tax dollars and taxpayer dollars. “User fees are, technically, not ‘tax… -
media mention May 16, 2018 USA Today: Amazon Tax over Head Tax Foreshadows Battles to Come in other Cities
In Washington state, neither state or local government are allowed to tax income. In addition, state law caps real estate tax increases to no more than 1% a year. “It’s… -
media mention May 8, 2018 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: How Seattle’s Amazon avoids paying taxes
Amazon effectively paid no U.S. income taxes in 2017, according to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Meanwhile, the company reported a staggering $1.9 billion in profits in… -
media mention May 3, 2018 Politifact: Bernie Sanders Says Amazon Paid no Federal Income Tax in 2017. He’s Right
The trick for companies? They get to write off the value at which the stock was later traded, not the original price for which they sold their stock to employees.… -
blog May 2, 2018 Apple’s Three-Month Tax Savings under President Trump’s New Tax Law: $1.68 Billion
By now, it should come as no shock that profitable Fortune 500 corporations are reaping huge benefits from the corporate tax cuts enacted last December. But as first quarter earnings reports are released, we’re learning just how big.
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media mention April 29, 2018 Detroit Free Press: Trump’s Tax Law Saves These Companies Millions
For example, embattled Wells Fargo saved $662 million off its tax bill during the first three months of 2018. Those tax savings promise to quickly wipe out the $1-billion fine the… -
blog April 26, 2018 15 Companies Report Tax Savings of $6.2 Billion in First Three Months of 2018
In reports released over the past week, covering the first three months of 2018, a few of the biggest and most profitable Fortune 500 corporations acknowledge receiving billions in tax cuts in the first quarter of 2018 alone. Fifteen of these companies collectively disclosed reducing their effective tax rates by $6.2 billion compared to the rates they faced in the first quarter of last year.
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media mention April 15, 2018 The Street: Is President Trump’s Beef with Amazon Justified
Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, added that Amazon aggressively fought off calls for years that it start collecting such taxes. Avoiding collection… -
report April 12, 2018 Many Large Corporations Reporting Tax Cut-Inspired Employee Bonuses Were Paying Low Tax Rates to Begin With
Since the corporate tax cut took effect at the beginning of 2018, a number of large corporations have announced plans to give bonuses or pay raises to some of their employees. Some of these companies have explicitly said that the new tax law, which sharply reduced the federal corporate income tax rate from 35 to 21 percent, made these moves possible. But an examination of the tax-paying habits of these corporations found that many of them used various tax breaks and accounting maneuvers to reduce their tax rates to below 21 percent year after year before the new tax law passed.
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report April 11, 2018 Fifteen (of Many) Reasons We Need Real Corporate Tax Reform
This ITEP report examines a diverse group of 15 corporations’ federal income tax disclosures for tax year 2017, the last year before the recently enacted tax law took effect, to shed light on the widespread nature of corporate tax avoidance. As a group, these companies paid no federal income tax on $24 billion in profits in 2017, and they paid almost no federal income tax on $120 billion in profits over the past five years. All but one received federal tax rebates in 2017, and almost all paid exceedingly low rates over five years.
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report April 10, 2018 Extensions of the New Tax Law’s Temporary Provisions Would Mainly Benefit the Wealthy
This analysis finds that extending the temporary tax provisions in 2026 would not be aimed at helping the middle-class any more than TCJA as enacted helps the middle-class in 2018.
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media mention April 6, 2018 Associated Press: Amazon Ignores Trump’s Attacks as It Molds a Business Empire
Trump’s charge that Amazon pays “little or no taxes” may have merit. Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said in February that… -
April 5, 2018 Washington Times: Andrew Cuomo complains about tax breaks for wealthy — then signs off on N.Y. loopholes
Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said this appears to be another example of wealthy Americans “gaming” the tax system through special… -
media mention April 4, 2018 MarketWatch: Trump Is Jealous Amazon Is Better at Avoiding Taxes
In 2017, Amazon paid no federal tax on $5.6 billion in U.S. profits, according to an analysis by Matthew Gardner at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. During the… -
media mention March 30, 2018 New York Times: Still Angry at The Washington Post’s Coverage, Trump Bashes Jeff Bezos’ Amazon
There was also some irony in the criticism coming from Trump, who has boasted about his dexterity in avoiding paying taxes. “This is the guy who said that not paying… -
media mention March 30, 2018 Newsweek: Trump, Who Just Gave Amazon a Huge Tax Break, Wants the Company Taxed
Noticeably absent from Trump’s critique of the company’s tax payments was its treatment under federal tax law. Amazon, which is currently valued at $673 billion, paid zero federal taxes in… -
media mention March 30, 2018 The Wrap: Trump Blasts Amazon for Tax Breaks, Using USPS as ‘Delivery Boy’
The Seattle-based company avoided paying federal income taxes for 2017, despite posting more than $5.5 billion in income last year, according to a recent analysis from Matthew Gardner of the… -
media mention March 27, 2018 Pacific Standard: Inside the Tax Law’s $25 Billion Oil Company Bonanza
More than 50 percent of the tax bill’s benefits will go to the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans, and more than 25 percent to the wealthiest 1 percent, according to… -
blog March 14, 2018 Boeing Paid Tax Rate of 8.4% in Previous Decade, But Trump to Speak About Why It Needed His Corporate Tax Cut
For the second time in seven months, President Trump will visit a Boeing factory to hype corporate tax cuts. He’s chosen the wrong poster child. If there was something preventing the aerospace giant from expanding its business before the Trump-GOP tax law, it certainly wasn’t taxes.
Boeing made headlines in 2016 only because after years of paying zero in federal taxes, it finally paid something. Over 10 years (2008 to 2017), the company paid an effective federal tax rate of 8.4 percent on $54.7 billion of U.S. profits.
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blog March 9, 2018 Pounds, Dollars, It’s Still Comparative Crumbs for Workers
The tobacco company Reynolds American announced this week that its full-time employees will receive a one-time bonus of $1,000 in the wake of a sharp reduction in its British parent company’s tax bill.
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media mention March 1, 2018 New Republic: Has Amazon Become Too Big to Tax
Earlier this week, Matthew Gardner of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy reported that Amazon, which recorded $5.6 billion in profits in 2017, paid zero in federal taxes, thanks to “various… -
media mention February 27, 2018 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Amazon Paid No U.S. Income Tax
Matthew Gardner, senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, wrote about Amazon’s tax bill that won’t come due in a Feb. 13 blog post. Without being privy… -
media mention February 23, 2018 The Economist: The Spoils from American Corporate Tax Reform Are Unevenly Spread
Most are bonuses that amount to a small part of the total gains, leading sceptics to attribute the announcements to clever public relations. A few firms have gone further, announcing… -
blog February 15, 2018 Mnuchin’s Not So Grand Stand on the Carried Interest Loophole Explained
When President Trump released the initial outline of his tax reform plan in April, carried interest repeal was nowhere to be found. And when Congress hammered out a tax plan in late December, lawmakers agreed to reduce the cost of the carried interest tax provision by about 5 percent. (Full repeal would have raised $20 billion over a decade; the enacted provision raises about $1 billion.)