New tax cuts to incentivize bringing jobs back to the United States will fail. No new tax provisions can be more generous than the zero percent rate the 2017 law provides for many offshore profits or the loopholes that allow corporations to shift profits to countries with minimal or no corporate income taxes.
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.
-
blog June 2, 2020 Trump-GOP Tax Law Encourages Companies to Move Jobs Offshore–and New Tax Cuts Won’t Change That
-
media mention May 22, 2020 Yahoo Finance: Biden Hits Amazon on Taxes, Which May Benefit From the Coronavirus Outbreak
While the numbers prove its savviness for capitalizing on advantages under the U.S. Tax Code, newly available deductions under the CARES Act make tax savings even more accessible. And with… -
media mention May 21, 2020 Bloomberg:Energy Companies Reap Tax Breaks As They Brace For Virus Impact
But what makes oil and gas companies especially poised to take advantage of this provision is the cyclical nature of the commodity they produce and transport. “It’s not at all… -
blog May 20, 2020 A Dimon Memo Will Buy You a Dime’s Worth of Social Change
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, in a May 19 memo to employees, outlines steps the company is taking to help its customers, small businesses and communities stay afloat. The part… -
media mention May 15, 2020 Yahoo!: How the coronavirus outbreak may help keep Amazon’s federal tax bill low (again)
“I’d say their tax rate will be a lot closer to zero than to 21%,” said Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, referencing… -
media mention May 8, 2020 Center for Public Integrity: COVID-19 Didn’t Affect This Company, But It Still Got a $893K Federal Loan
“There doesn’t appear to be any mechanism whatsoever to ensure that these loans were available only to companies that were actually affected by the coronavirus and the associated economic shutdown,”… -
blog May 5, 2020 The Price We Pay for Amazon in Its Prime
There is every reason to believe that Amazon will continue its tax-avoidance ways in 2020. The entirely-legal tax avoidance tools the company used to zero out its federal income tax bills over the last three years remain entirely legal today. From accelerated depreciation to the research and development tax credit to the deduction for executive stock options, Amazon’s tax avoidance tools have been blessed by lawmakers, and presidents, of all stripes.
-
media mention May 1, 2020 Bloomberg: Loan Forgiveness Deductions Left in Hands of Congress
The IRS could have gotten flack for allowing the deductions, tax professionals said, as the agency could be seen as effectively legislating. The agency didn’t immediately return a request for… -
blog April 29, 2020 Pandemic Profits: Netflix’s Record Profit Haul, Past Tax Avoidance Raise Questions about Tax Law’s Weaknesses
At a time when many companies are facing existential threats due to the COVID-19 pandemic and associated economic shutdown, it is vital to ensure that our corporate tax laws apply fairly to companies that are still turning a profit in these turbulent times.
-
media mention April 9, 2020 Bloomberg: Wealthy Win, Low-Wage Earners Lose in April 15 Tax Extension
“High income people will benefit,” said Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “Anyone selling a whole bunch of stock on which they had… -
blog April 6, 2020 Trump to Restaurant Owners: “Let Them Eat Skyboxes”
Last week, President Trump destroyed everyone’s coronavirus press conference bingo card by announcing that a conversation he had with celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck inspired him to propose restoring a corporate tax deduction for business entertainment expenses. Trump’s own signature tax plan repealed this break two years ago.
-
media mention April 6, 2020 Wall Street Journal:This Coronavirus Tax Policy Idea Wasn’t on the Table. Then Famous Chefs Called the President.
Tax experts across the political spectrum say it makes sense to limit meals and entertainment deductions. “It’s essentially a personal expense masquerading as a business expense, ” said Matt Gardner,… -
blog April 1, 2020 Boeing “CARES” A Lot About its Shareholders—But What about the Rest of Us?
The gigantic Coronavirus-related tax and spending bill enacted last week, the so-called “CARES Act,” sets aside $17 billion in loans for “businesses critical to maintaining national security.” It’s generally understood that the bill’s authors want much, if not all, of this $17 billion to go to a single company: Boeing. So it behooves us to ask whether Boeing benefits America and its economy in ways that merit this largesse.
-
blog March 31, 2020 Congress “CARES” for Wealthy with COVID-19 Tax Policy Provisions
At a time when record numbers of Americans are facing unemployment, state and local governments are facing a perfect storm of growing public investment needs and vanishing tax revenues, and small business owners are struggling to avoid even more layoffs, lavishing tax breaks on the top 1 percent in this way shouldn’t be in anyone’s top 20 list of needed tax changes.
-
media mention March 28, 2020 Wall Street Journal:Whiting Petroleum Adopts Poison Pill to Protect Potential Tax Breaks
One tax analyst said hard-hit industries might be trying to protect their net operating losses from unwelcome distressed investors looking for buying opportunities. “It seems like one of the unforeseen… -
media mention March 25, 2020 American Prospect: Avoid Taxes, Receive Federal Bailouts
On that haul, they paid an average effective federal income tax rate of 2.3 percent. According to Matthew Gardner at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, that rate is… -
blog March 10, 2020 COVID-19 Is No Excuse for Airline Industry or Any Other Corporate Tax Cut
Trump administration officials have reportedly floated the idea of including tax breaks for the airline industry in its package of COVID-19-related stimulus proposals, which would allow airline companies to defer income taxes into the future. This is an odd policy choice since most of the biggest airlines are already using deferral to zero out most or all of their federal income taxes on billions of dollars in profits.
-
blog March 3, 2020 Administration Once Again Touts Misleading Information on 2017 Tax Law
The Trump administration has remained consistently on message about its 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. More than two years after the passage of the law, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin… -
media mention February 20, 2020 MarketWatch: Jeff Bezos spent more on this house in Beverly Hills than Amazon has paid so far in federal corporate income tax for 2019
Amazon listed a “summary” of its 2019 U.S. taxes as including $2.4 billion in other federal taxes, including payroll taxes and customs duties, and more than $1.6 billion in state… -
media mention February 20, 2020 Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Tax reform may be more lucrative than advertised for corporations
Many of Minnesota’s major corporations paid lower tax rates in 2018 than new, dramatically lower corporate tax rates. That was among the findings in an analysis of government filings by… -
news release February 19, 2020 White House Advisors’ Push for Corporate ‘Minimum Tax’ Will Not Fix the Tax Law
A White House proposal to follow Trump’s massive corporate tax cuts with a minimum corporate tax would be like shooting a person on Fifth Avenue and then offering them a band aid.
-
media mention February 7, 2020 Politifact: Fact-checking the Democratic claim that Amazon doesn’t pay taxes
Short answer: Amazon’s tax returns are private, so we don’t know for sure what Amazon pays in federal taxes. But Amazon’s estimates on its annual 10-K filings with the U.S.… -
media mention February 7, 2020 Yahoo! Finance: Amazon paid a 1.2% tax rate on $13,285,000,000 in profit for 2019
Matthew Gardner, senior fellow for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), who analyzes corporations and their tax avoidance, says there’s “no meaningful” connection between Amazon and many of… -
media mention February 7, 2020 The Sun: AMAZON’S DIME Amazon paid just ONE per cent tax after making $13BILLION profit leaving taxpayers with jus $162million
One expert found ‘no meaningful’ link between Amazon and the tax payments in the SEC filing. Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, wrote:… -
media mention February 7, 2020 Fox Business: Amazon paid tax rate of 1.2% on $13B in profits last year
“This means that instead of avoiding 100 percent of its income tax liability, Amazon appears to have avoided only 94 percent of its tax bill last year,” Matthew Gardner, senior fellow…