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 December 16, 2020 The American Prospect: The Day One Agenda for Corporate Taxes
Even without Congress, President-elect Biden’s regulatory agencies can fix a lot of problems with the corporate tax code. BY STEVE WAMHOFF, MATTHEW GARDNER The public has long told pollsters that… -
blog October 28, 2020 An Underfunded IRS Allows Corporations to Get Away with Probably Illegal Tax Dodges
A new look at S&P 500 annual financial reports for 2019 shows that five companies—Chevron, Dell, Eli Lilly, ExxonMobil and General Electric—kept $1 billion in tax breaks they admitted were probably illegal because tax authorities failed to come to a final determination before the statute of limitations ran out.
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media mention October 27, 2020 CBS News: Comparing Trump and Biden’s Tax Plans
ITEP Senior Fellow appeared on CBS News to discuss President Trump and Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden’s Tax Plan. Watch -
media mention October 15, 2020 Center for Public Integrity: The Heist
“It’s pretty clear that the PPP process was run in a way that pushed needy small businesses to the back of the line while prioritizing the influential,” said Matthew Gardner,… -
media mention October 9, 2020 Yahoo! Finance: A Breakdown of Biden’s Tax Proposals
Matt Gardner, Senior Fellow at The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy joins Yahoo Finance’s Kristin Myers for a break down of Joe Biden’s tax proposals. Watch the video -
media mention October 7, 2020 Washington Post: How the Cares Act gave millions to energy companies with no strings attached
“The Cares Act tax provisions were too heavily tilted towards large businesses and away from at-risk individuals,” said Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic… -
media mention October 3, 2020 Forbes: The $750 Question: How Trump’s Taxes Reveal The Deep Unfairness Of The U.S. Tax Code
“There are certainly some tax advantages available to larger corporations that are practically unavailable to individuals. Most large businesses have full-time staff available to help negotiate the tax laws,” said… -
blog September 30, 2020 Donald Trump and Taxes: Fast and Loose with Loopholes or Fraud?
The president’s apparent abuse of everything from hair-care deductions to consulting fees for family members raises questions about whether Trump was fast and loose with tax loopholes or whether the IRS simply wasn’t enforcing the law. Either way, Trump successfully flouting or pushing the limits of the law shouldn’t come as a surprise: Congress has cut IRS funding, in real terms in each of the last 10 years.
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media mention September 29, 2020 WGN NewsNation: President Trump calls income tax report ‘fake news,’ says he’s still under IRS audit
Matt Gardner is with the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy in Washington. He spoke with NewsNation’s Dean Reynolds about the New York Times report. “This isn’t news that the… -
media mention September 29, 2020 Bloomberg: Trump’s reported $750 federal income tax bill is smaller than the average payment by an American household making $20,000 a year
The data — drawn from the IRS — shows Trump’s tax payment is less compared to households earning between $20,000 and $25,000 each year. Around 9 million people filed tax… -
media mention September 21, 2020 Politico Morning Tax: Digging in on SALT
Matt Gardner of the liberal Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy thought this particular portion of the SALT debate had a number of layers to it. Among them: Deductions for… -
blog August 5, 2020 Between the Lines: Amazon Q2 Report Hints It Will Avoid Taxes on This Year’s Record Profit Haul
The House Judiciary Committee last week held an antitrust hearing to scrutinize Amazon and other tech companies’ growing dominance. A look at the online retail giant’s new quarterly report and past tax avoidance reveals why lawmakers should be equally concerned about how the tax system allows dominant, profitable corporations to avoid most or all federal tax on their profits.
Amazon, yet again, is poised to pay little or no federal income tax on its record profits, and it appears likely to do so using entirely legal tax breaks for stock options and research and development.
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blog July 29, 2020 Biden’s Minimum Corporate Tax Proposal: Yes, Please Limit Amazon’s Tax Breaks
A large majority of Americans want corporations to pay more taxes and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has several proposals to achieve that. The newest idea is to require corporations to pay a minimum tax equal to 15 percent of profits they report to shareholders and to the public if this is less than what they pay under regular corporate tax rules. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal quotes several critics of the proposal, but none of their points are convincing.
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blog July 28, 2020 A Tax Loophole You Could Drive a Food Truck Through: Senate GOP Proposes Full Deductibility of Business Meals
After weeks of being in no particular hurry to assemble a new COVID-19 economic relief package, the Senate GOP has released its plan. It includes the “Supporting America’s Restaurant Workers Act,” which would allow business owners to write off 100 percent of the cost of their restaurant meals through the end of 2020. The two most obvious questions to ask about such a plan are “why” and “why now?” Republican lawmakers have not offered sensible responses to either because they have none.
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report July 21, 2020 An Updated Analysis of a Potential Payroll Tax Holiday
ITEP estimates that if Congress and the president eliminated all Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes paid by employers and employees from Sept. 1 through the end of the year, 64 percent of the benefits would go the richest 20 percent of taxpayers and 24 percent of the benefits would go to the richest 1 percent of taxpayers, as illustrated in the table below. The total cost of this hypothetical proposal would be $336 billion.
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media mention July 16, 2020 KPFA: Death and taxes! or, why the rich get richer
Why and how the wealth of the very rich has grown, while all other public and private wealth has shrunk during COVID 19. Detailed analysis from the Institute on Taxation… -
report July 14, 2020 Who Pays Taxes in America in 2020?
Having a sound understanding of who pays taxes and how much is a particularly relevant question now as the nation grapples with a health and economic crisis that is devastating lower-income families and requiring all levels of government to invest more in keeping individuals, families and communities afloat. This year, the share of all taxes paid by the richest 1 percent of Americans (24.3 percent) will be just a bit higher than the share of all income going to this group (20.9 percent). The share of all taxes paid by the poorest fifth of Americans (2 percent) will be just a bit lower than the share of all income going to this group (2.8 percent).
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media mention July 9, 2020 Yahoo Finance: This GOP Proposal May Slash Taxes for Big Tech: ITEP
Matthew Gardner, Senior Fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, joins Yahoo Finance’s Zack Guzman to discuss how a possible Republican tax credit proposal could provide new breaks… -
media mention July 9, 2020 MedPage Today: Tenet Gets Big Federal $$$ but Still Cuts Employees
Many companies, including Tenet, delayed paying their 2017 tax liabilities at the rate then (35%) to follow whatever the rate is when they decide to pay (21% for 2019), said… -
media mention July 8, 2020 Business Insider: Trump Wants Tax Breaks to Encourage People to Watch Sports Games and Travel Around the US. Here’s Why That Could Backfire as the Pandemic Rages.
The McSally proposal also drew fire from economists who argued it would mainly benefit wealthier taxpayers and not be well targeted. “Low and most middle-income families will receive no or… -
media mention June 30, 2020 POLITICO Morning Tax: Welcome, commissioner
FOOT OFF THE ACCELERATOR, PLEASE: The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy’s Matthew Gardner and Steve Wamhoff maintain in a new paper that the proposals to allow companies to cash out… -
report June 30, 2020 Republican Tax Credit Proposal Would Provide New Breaks to Tax Avoiders Like Amazon and Netflix
While lawmakers of both parties and policy experts discuss various ways to respond to the continuing COVID-19 crisis and resulting economic downturn, Republicans in Congress are offering a new solution. Their idea, which is still being discussed, is to waive existing limits on business tax credits. This could benefit corporations that are profitable but that nonetheless pay no taxes or very little in taxes because of the many tax breaks and legal loopholes they already enjoy.
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blog June 23, 2020 McSally “Travel Tax Credit” Is an Invitation for Tax Avoidance
Earlier this week, U.S. Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) introduced the “American TRIP Act,” a bill ostensibly designed to encourage Americans to boost the economy by traveling within the United States. The bill is certainly a trip in the colloquial sense of the word.
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media mention June 23, 2020 The Fiscal Times: A ‘Wacky’ Tax Credit Idea: $4,000 for Vacation
Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, says that the loose requirements in the bill mean “that any car owner with an ounce of… -
report June 2, 2020 Depreciation Breaks Have Saved 20 Major Corporations $26.5 Billion Over Past Two Years
The Trump administration and its congressional allies have proposed making permanent the expensing provision in the Trump-GOP tax law. Expensing is the most extreme form of accelerated depreciation, which allows businesses to deduct the cost of purchasing equipment more quickly than it wears out. But expensing and other types of accelerated depreciation already account for a very large share of corporate tax breaks and allows many companies to pay nothing at all.