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, 2019 Washington Post: Corporations Paid 11.3 Percent Tax Rate Last Year, in Steep Drop Under President Trump’s Law
About 400 of America’s largest corporations paid an average federal tax rate of about 11 percent on their profits last year, roughly half the official rate established under President Trump’s… -
blog December 16, 2019 More of the Same: Corporate Tax Avoidance Hasn’t Changed Much Under Trump-GOP Tax Law
A new report from ITEP released today shows that, based on the first year of financial reports released by companies operating under the new tax law, tax avoidance appears to be every bit as much of a problem under the new tax system as it was before the Trump tax law took effect.
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news release December 16, 2019 Fortune 500 Companies Avoided $73.9 Billion in Tax Under First Year of Trump Tax Law
A comprehensive examination of Fortune 500 companies’ financial filings in 2018, the first year of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, finds that the law did nothing to curb corporate tax avoidance, with 91 companies paying $0 in taxes on U.S. income in 2018 and profitable companies overall paying a collective effective tax rate of 11.3 percent, which is barely more than half the 21 percent rate established by the tax law, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) said today.
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report December 16, 2019 Corporate Tax Avoidance in the First Year of the Trump Tax Law
Profitable Fortune 500 companies avoided $73.9 billion in taxes under the first year of the Trump-GOP tax law. The study includes financial filings by 379 Fortune 500 companies that were profitable in 2018; it excludes companies that reported a loss.
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media mention November 17, 2019 The New York Times: How FedEx Cut Its Tax Bill to $0
“Something like $1.5 billion in future taxes that they had promised to pay, just vanished,” said Matthew Gardner, an analyst at the liberal Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy in Washington. “The… -
media mention November 15, 2019 PolitiFact: Viral Post Says Democrats Spent $40 Million on Impeachment. That’s False
Tax policy experts told us they aren’t sure how much the impeachment inquiry has cost since Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced it Sept. 24. “I can’t think of anyone who’s tried to calculate… -
media mention November 13, 2019 Orlando Sentinel: In Florida, 99% of Companies Pay No Corporate Income Tax — with Lawmakers’ Blessing
A leaky corporate income tax ultimately shifts more of the cost of Florida government from corporations onto others, including low- and middle-income families, said Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at… -
media mention November 1, 2019 Bloomberg: Treasury Plans to Weaken Rules Meant to Stop Corporate Tax Avoidance
The Treasury Department should tread cautiously in weakening these rules now while Democratic lawmakers are eager to repeal large portions of the 2017 tax overhaul, said Matt Gardner, a senior… -
blog September 20, 2019 Business Roundtable Members’ Social Responsibility Pledges are Easily Made, and Easily Broken
It was this side of last month that the Business Roundtable made headlines by announcing its new vision of the purpose of a corporation. More than 180 corporate leaders signed the statement, which declared corporations will prioritize the communities in which they work—instead of shareholder value. But for some corporations, the Business Roundtable statement is yesterday’s news, and they are commencing with business as usual.
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media mention September 6, 2019 Forbes: Corporate America’s Promise To Focus Less On Profits Will Ring Hollow If We Can’t Tax The Rich
As Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, puts it in a blog, the joint statement likely reflects more of a fear of shifting… -
media mention August 21, 2019 Fortune: What Trump’s Brief Flirtation With a Payroll Tax Cut Says About the State of the Economy
“The administration based the big 2017 tax cut on the idea that it would spur economic growth,” says Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic… -
blog August 20, 2019 Business Roundtable’s Newfound Devotion to Corporate Responsibility Doesn’t Include Paying Taxes
If you squint really hard, the Business Roundtable’s newly declared fondness for “supporting the communities in which we work” could be read as an acknowledgment of the need for a tax system that can pay for needed services. But it’s not.
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blog August 16, 2019 One Tax System for Most Americans, and a Second System for the Wealthiest
Last year, the Walton family’s fortune grew by $100 million a day. This level of wealth is particularly obscene in the context of the Walmart Corporation’s dark store strategy. The company works nationwide to reduce its property tax assessments, which, when successful, deprives local communities of revenue necessary to fund education, libraries, parks, public health and other services.
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blog July 10, 2019 Missouri’s Creative Approach to Ending the “Race to the Bottom” in State Business Taxes
Each year, state and local governments spend billions of dollars on targeted tax incentives—special tax breaks ostensibly designed to encourage businesses to relocate, expand or simply stay where they are. A law enacted by the Missouri legislature creates a template for states to work bilaterally to put the brakes on the “race to the bottom” in state business taxes.
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media mention July 1, 2019 Bloomberg: Horse Racing Tax Credit Backers Not Deterred by House Setback
Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said there are sensible reasons to ask whether these tax breaks are more generous than they should… -
media mention June 27, 2019 Axios: Correcting Halliburton’s Taxes
Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, emailed this morning to say that I was reading the below section of the 10-K backward. Rather… -
media mention June 14, 2019 Wall Street Journal: Does Amazon Really Pay No Taxes?
“I’ll cheerfully acknowledge that [the current provision] is not what we want to really know, but it’s also the closest thing we’re ever going to see,” said Matt Gardner, senior… -
blog June 4, 2019 File Under “No Surprise”: Wealthiest Taxpayers Use Offshore Tax Shelters More Than the Rest of Us, New Research Finds
Tax evasion matters. It drains needed revenues from the public treasury, and saps public confidence in rules of the game. A recent Pew Research poll finds that 60 percent of… -
blog June 4, 2019 Things Get Worse for Uber: Ride-Sharing Giant’s Taxes Under Scrutiny
Since Uber’s much-hyped initial public offering last month, the news has been relentlessly bad for the scandal-plagued ride-sharing company. The company’s share price has fallen by 8 percent from its… -
blog May 30, 2019 Congressional Research Service Calls Three Strikes on the Trump Tax Cuts
This new report is the most comprehensive assessment yet undertaken by the CRS, which has an unimpeachable reputation as an impartial arbiter of policy disputes. So, when it says that the TCJA doesn’t appear to have grown wages or the economy and has made our long-term budget deficits even worse, it’s a judgment that will last.
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media mention May 8, 2019 Allentown Morning Call: Fortune 500 company PPL not only paid no federal taxes last year, it got a $19 million rebate; it says it has invested those savings
Sixty of America’s Fortune 500 corporations paid nothing — or got refunds — for 2018, according to a report released last month by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy… -
media mention May 5, 2019 Newark Star-Ledger: The 5 NJ Companies Reported Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Income Last Year. Their Federal Tax Bill: $0
Identifying companies that pay nothing in federal taxes is no easy task, said Matthew Gardner, one of the authors of the IATEP report, and he suspects there are far more… -
media mention April 30, 2019 Pacific Standard: Can Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies Pay for Beto O’Rourke’s Climate Plan?
“The 2017 tax act, through its omission of true tax reform, really does leave a lot of opportunities available to Congress, starting in 2020, to broaden the tax base in a way that could raise a substantial amount of money,” says Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The Trump administration’s tax legislation, known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, did little to close corporate tax breaks enjoyed by oil and gas and other industries, according to Gardner, “and in fact made some of the biggest tax breaks even bigger.”
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media mention April 16, 2019 New York Post: Want to get out of taxes? Just make $79B
While millions of Americans had to cut Uncle Sam a check this year to pay their tax bill, 60 of the Fortune 500 companies paid zero taxes on their revenue,… -
media mention April 15, 2019 CBS Radio News: Taxes, the Why and How Much
ITEP senior fellow was featured on this Tax Day podcast. To listen, visit: https://www.newsweek.com/republican-tax-cuts-trump-wage-increases-879800