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 July 8, 2021 Politico: As Bezos called for tax hikes, Amazon lobbied to keep its tax bill low
“It’s very likely they’re getting hundreds of millions of dollars a year in R&D tax credits,” said Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy,… -
media mention July 8, 2021 New York Post: Jeff Bezos openly embraces tax hikes, but Amazon lobbied against them
Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, who’s studied the tax habits of Amazon and other big companies, told Politico that Amazon is likely… -
media mention June 4, 2021 Talking Points Memo: If Biden’s Corporate Tax Offer Isn’t A Feint, Then It’s A Massive Concession
Their specific opposition to the corporate tax hike, Matt Gardner, corporate tax expert at the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, told TPM, is part of their “hidebound refusal… -
media mention May 28, 2021 Vox: You should be suspicious of benevolent big business
Amazon, like a lot of big companies, is good at keeping its tax bill low. In some recent years, it’s paid zero federal income tax; it’s managed to pay very… -
brief May 25, 2021 Income Tax Increases in the President’s American Families Plan
President Biden’s American Families Plan includes revenue-raising proposals that would affect only very high-income taxpayers.[1] The two most prominent of these proposals would restore the top personal income tax rate to 39.6 percent and eliminate tax breaks related to capital gains for millionaires. As this report explains, these proposals would affect less than 1 percent of taxpayers and would be confined almost exclusively to the richest 1 percent of Americans. The plan includes other tax increases that would also target the very well-off and would make our tax system fairer. It would raise additional revenue by more effectively enforcing tax laws already on the books.
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blog May 18, 2021 IRS Clock Runs Out, Saving 14 Large Companies $1.3 Billion
Each year, corporations publicly state that some of the tax breaks they claim are unlikely to withstand scrutiny from tax authorities. And each year, corporations report that they will keep some of the dubious tax breaks they declared in previous years simply because the statute of limitations ran out before tax authorities made any conclusions. This suggests that, perhaps because of cuts to its enforcement budget, the IRS is not even investigating corporations that publicly announce they have claimed tax breaks that tax authorities would likely find illegal.
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brief May 6, 2021 Effects of the President’s Capital Gains and Dividends Tax Proposals by State
President Biden’s proposal to eliminate the lower income tax rate on capital gains (profits from selling assets) and stock dividends for millionaires would affect less than half of one percent (0.4 percent) of U.S. taxpayers if it goes into effect in 2022. The share of taxpayers affected would be less than 1 percent in every state.
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media mention May 4, 2021 New York Times: Amazon Had a Big Year, but Paid No Tax to Luxembourg
Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning research group in Washington, said Amazon’s Luxembourg filing showed why there was such urgency, not… -
media mention April 30, 2021 Associated Press: Biden’s corporate tax plan takes aim at income inequality
“It’s a terrific plan,” said Matthew Gardner, senior fellow at the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “We cannot have a sustainable corporate tax system until we solve this… -
media mention April 29, 2021 USA TODAY: Biden cites left-leaning study that 55 of top U.S. companies paid no federal income taxes
The ITEP report was based on a review of annual financial records by the nation’s largest publicly traded companies for their most recent fiscal year. Wamhoff noted that Biden on… -
media mention April 28, 2021 89.3 WFPL: LG&E’s Parent Company Paid No Federal Taxes Last Year (Kentucky)
In a year when Kentuckians struggled to pay their utilities bills because of a global pandemic, Louisville Gas and Electric’s parent company paid nothing in federal taxes. PPL reported around… -
media mention April 26, 2021 Morning Call: PPL Corp. and other companies with Lehigh Valley ties paid zero U.S. taxes in 2020
Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and co-author of the organization’s report, said PPL documents show the company made pre-tax U.S. income of… -
media mention April 23, 2021 Bloomberg: Firms Shuffle Intangible Assets Abroad Despite U.S. Tax Break
President Joe Biden and other Democrats have said FDII has been ineffective and should be replaced or revamped. While the concerns they’ve voiced about FDII aren’t directly related to the… -
April 21, 2021 On Corporate Tax Avoidance “[A majority of people] recognize this basic unfairness: When you give big companies tax breaks, you’re taking them away from small businesses. The corporate tax reform… -
blog April 19, 2021 Nike’s Tax Avoidance Response Does not Dispute It Paid $0 in Federal Income Tax
It was (allegedly) P.T. Barnum who first said “there’s no such thing as bad publicity.” But the public relations professionals at the Nike Corporation clearly disagree with this maxim. Last week, after multiple media outlets, including the New York Times, wrote about ITEP’s conclusion that Nike avoided federal corporate income taxes under the Trump tax law, the company contacted these news organizations to… change the subject.
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media mention April 15, 2021 Washington Post: Biden proposals may not guarantee all Fortune 500 corporations pay federal income taxes, experts say
Of the 55 corporations that did not pay federal income taxes in 2020, only five had more than $2 billion in net income, according to the report by the Institute… -
media mention April 14, 2021 Common Dreams: Jayapal Calls for Crackdown on Wealthiest After IRS Chief Says Tax Evasion Costs US $1 Trillion a Year
Furthermore, another recent study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) showed that 55 U.S. corporate giants paid $0 in federal income taxes last year, and 26 of… -
media mention April 14, 2021 Willamette Week: Nike’s Tax Bill in Oregon Is a Secret. We Asked Three Analysts to Make an Estimate.
The breakdown of that percentage among states is impossible to know, [Matthew Gardner, ITEP Senior Fellow] says, especially considering not every state has the same single-factor corporate tax structure that… -
media mention April 10, 2021 CNN: Jeff Bezos endorsed higher corporate tax rates. But it won’t cost him much
Amazon (AMZN) isn’t doing anything illegal or improper — or unusual. Few corporations pay 21% of their reported pre-tax earnings in corporate income tax. That’s because there are many ways… -
report April 8, 2021 National and State-by-State Estimates of President Biden’s Campaign Proposals for Revenue
During his presidential campaign, Joe Biden proposed to change the tax code to raise revenue directly from households with income exceeding $400,000. More precisely, Biden proposed to raise personal income taxes on unmarried individuals and married couples with taxable income exceeding $400,000, and he also proposed to raise payroll taxes on individual workers with earnings exceeding $400,000. Just 2 percent of taxpayers would see a direct tax hike (an increase in either personal income taxes, payroll taxes, or both) if Biden’s campaign proposals were in effect in 2022. The share of taxpayers affected in each state would vary from a low of 0.6 percent in West Virginia to a high of 3.5 percent in New Jersey.
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April 8, 2021 The High Cost of Corporate Tax Avoidance (Webinar)
When communities thrive, so do corporations. But when profitable corporations build their empires by exploiting the tax code, it is workers, the environment and our communities—not CEOs or shareholders—that are harmed. Amazon posted its highest U.S. profit ever for 2020, an unprecedented year defined by a pandemic. Yet the company sheltered more than half its profits from corporate taxes—legally. While the company may be one of the most recognizable tax avoiders, it’s not an outlier.
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media mention April 8, 2021 AlJazeera: Pros, cons and pragmatism: Biden’s plan to fund infrastructure
Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, agrees. “The low cost of borrowing and the pressing spending needs we face right now make deficit… -
media mention April 8, 2021 Bloomberg: Biden Tax Plan Seen Hitting Tech, Pharmaceutical Companies
The provisions — part of the administration’s plan to finance a $2.25 trillion infrastructure package — mean that tech and pharmaceutical companies could lose many of the tax-planning tools that… -
media mention April 7, 2021 Salon: America’s Biggest Corporations Paid No Federal Income Taxes Last Year: Study
According to a new study, conservative policies look to have helped a handful of large companies mooch off the federal government in 2020. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy,… -
media mention April 7, 2021 Akron Beacon Journal: FirstEnergy, AEP among 55 Companies that Paid Zero Federal Income Taxes in 2020, Report Shows
FirstEnergy and AEP also were among 26 profitable companies that for three years, from 2018 to 2020, took legal deductions that allowed them to pay zero federal income tax, according…