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 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 -
media mention April 15, 2019 New York Times: Their Tax Rate Is Zero
Amazon. Delta Air Lines. Chevron. IBM. General Motors. Molson Coors. Eli Lilly. What do these companies have in common? They paid no federal taxes last year. Thanks to President Trump’s… -
media mention April 15, 2019 Bloomberg: Big Tech’s Big Tax Ruse: Industry Splurges on Buybacks
Spending on research and development climbed slightly. Capital expenditures rose because Alphabet Inc. and Facebook Inc. almost doubled spending in that category. Apple Inc. and its partners have yet to… -
media mention April 15, 2019 San Jose Mercury News: Which Bay Area Companies Didn’t Pay Federal Income Tax in 2018?
Corporations — they’re just like us. They, too, have to file income taxes every year. But unlike most of us, they have teams of accountants who can minimize their tax… -
blog April 12, 2019 $4.3 Billion in Rebates, Zero-Tax Bill for 60 Profitable Corps Directly Related to Loopholes
Meet the new corporate tax system, same as the old corporate tax system. That’s the inescapable conclusion of a new ITEP report assessing the taxpaying behavior of America’s most profitable corporations. The report, Corporate Tax Avoidance Remains Rampant Under New Law, released earlier this week, finds that 60 Fortune 500 corporations disclose paying zero in federal income taxes in 2018 despite enjoying large profits.
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media mention April 12, 2019 Daily Mail: The Number of U.S. Companies Paying Zero Federal taxes DOUBLED when Trump’s Tax Plan Took Effect in 2018
The change cut the tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent and allowed companies to take advantage of deductions, tax credits and rebates. That change alone is projected to… -
report April 11, 2019 Who Pays Taxes in America in 2019?
For years, Americans have been told that the rich are paying a highly disproportionate share of the nation’s taxes. Claims to that effect often focus on just one tax, the federal personal income tax, which is indeed progressive overall. But when the nation’s tax system is viewed in its entirety, it becomes clear that the reality is very different. Despite their enormous incomes and wealth, the nation’s richest taxpayers are paying a share of overall taxes that slightly exceeds their share of income.
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media mention April 11, 2019 NBC News: Twice as Many Companies Paying Zero Taxes under Trump Tax Plan
The controversial Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, signed by President Donald Trump in December 2017, lowered the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent, among other cuts. That’s… -
media mention April 11, 2019 The Hill: Report Finds Twice as Many Companies Will Pay Zero Tax This Year
The report cites data released Thursday from the left-leaning Washington, D.C., think-tank the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). ITEP reported that the companies listed used a “diverse array of legal tax… -
media mention April 11, 2019 Fast Company: Amazon and Netflix Are among Many Companies Paying Zero Federal Taxes under Trump’s Tax Law
Tax season is upon us–and by us, I mean everyone who is not Amazon, Netflix, Chevron, or pharmaceutical manufacturer Eli Lilly and Co., because they are among the 60 or so… -
media mention April 11, 2019 KALW: Who Pays Taxes, and Where Does It Go?
On this edition of Your Call, we’ll ask who bears what share of the tax burden and where their money goes. Donald Trump’s 2017 tax law gave most of its… -
news release April 11, 2019 60 Fortune 500 Companies Avoided All Federal Income Tax in 2018 Under New Tax Law
91 corporations did not pay federal income taxes on their 2018 U.S. income. Read the follow-up report released in December 2019, Corporate Tax Avoidance in the First Year of the Trump… -
report April 11, 2019 Corporate Tax Avoidance Remains Rampant Under New Tax Law
For decades, profitable Fortune 500 companies have been able to manipulate the tax system to avoid paying even a dime in tax on billions of dollars in U.S. profits. This ITEP report provides the first comprehensive look at how the new corporate tax laws that took effect after the passage of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act affects the scale of corporate tax avoidance.
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media mention April 4, 2019 CNBC: Why Amazon Paid No Federal Income Tax
In this CNBC video, Matthew Gardner, ITEP senior fellow, outlines how Amazon got away with paying no federal taxes for the last two years. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/03/why-amazon-paid-no-federal-income-tax.html -
blog March 25, 2019 Corporate Profits ?, Corporate Federal Tax Collections ?
Data released Friday by the U.S. Treasury Department should give great pause to all who care about the federal government’s ability to raise revenue in a fair, sustainable way. In the wake of the 2017 corporate tax overhaul, corporate tax collections have fallen at a rate never seen during a period of economic growth.
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media mention March 22, 2019 NBC News: Factory Workers at GM See Layoffs, not Benefits, after Tax Cuts
Matt Gardner, a senior fellow with the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonpartisan, liberal think tank, said GM’s announcement confirmed economists’ arguments regarding the tax cuts. “Corporations will… -
media mention March 4, 2019 CBS News:Some of America’s Biggest Companies Paid Little to No Federal Income Tax in 2018
Its 10-K estimates its federal income tax liability at $-22.176 for 2018 — hence ITEP’s conclusion that it won’t pay the government any money for the year. “When I say… -
media mention March 1, 2019 Fortune: Why Amazon May Pay No Federal Income Taxes This Year
Amazon’s expected tax avoidance comes despite it nearly doubling its U.S. profits to $11.16 billion in 2018, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), a nonpartisan tax… -
media mention February 22, 2019 Bloomberg: Amazon Doesn’t Plan to Pay the IRS Anything This Tax Season
The fact that Amazon can legally reduce its tax bill to nothing calls into question the effectiveness of the code, said Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute of… -
media mention February 22, 2019 InsideSources: Amazon Paid Zero Corporate Taxes Last Year. Why Aren’t 2020 Democrats Talking About It?
“I blame Congress,” says Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy which first released the news of Amazon’s zero corporate tax bill. “Unless we… -
media mention February 21, 2019 Think Progress: U.S. Banks Raked in Record Profits Thanks to GOP Tax Bill
Because of the corporate tax cut, massive corporations like Amazon, which is valued at nearly $800 billion, will pay $0 in federal taxes this year. In fact, the company is expecting a federal refund of nearly $129 billion. This essentially puts Amazon at a federal income tax rate of -1 percent this year, after paying a federal rate of more than 11 percent from 2011 to 2016. This is the second year in a row that Amazon has not paid any federal taxes. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) suggests that this is due to a combination of the corporate tax cut and a loophole that allows corporations to avoid paying state and federal taxes on roughly half their income.