Enormous amounts of presidential election messaging and coverage will unfurl between now and November 5. You will surely hear a lot about abortion, immigration, and inflation. You will hear about a fight for the future of American democracy. Even more likely, you’ll hear about polls, strategies to attract working-class and minority voters, or what one candidate said or tweeted or posted, or designated a surrogate to say or tweet or post. Oh, and court cases. Lots and lots of court cases. What you might not hear as much about are the stakes of the election’s outcome for all the money in the country. On Tax Day, of all days, it seems like a good time to lay that out.
Steve Wamhoff
Steve Wamhoff is ITEP’s director of federal tax policy. In this role, he is responsible for setting the organization’s federal research and policy agenda. He is the author of numerous reports and analyses of federal tax policies as well as in-depth policy briefs that outline how the federal income tax and corporate tax code can be overhauled to improve tax fairness.
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media mention April 15, 2024 The American Prospect: The $6 Trillion Decision
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report April 9, 2024 Who Pays Taxes in America in 2024
America’s tax system is just barely progressive, and not nearly as progressive as many suggest or as progressive as it could be. There is plenty of room for lawmakers to improve the progressivity of the tax code to combat economic, wealth, and racial inequality.
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report March 12, 2024 Revenue-Raising Proposals in President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Plan
President Biden’s most recent budget plan includes proposals that would raise more than $5 trillion from high-income individuals and corporations over a decade. Like the budget plan he submitted to Congress last year, it would partly reverse the Trump tax cuts for corporations and high-income individuals, clamp down on corporate tax avoidance, and require the wealthiest individuals to pay taxes on their capital gains income just as they are required to for other types of income, among other reforms.
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blog March 7, 2024 Tax Proposals Expected to be in President Biden’s Budget Plan
President Biden discussed multiple tax proposals during the State of the Union address to Congress. Several of these proposals appeared in the budget plan he submitted to Congress last year,… -
media mention March 7, 2024 Washington Post: Biden: Ban Deductions for Firms Paying Executives More Than $1 Million
President Biden will call for blocking corporations from deducting the costs of paying salaries over $1 million from their federal taxes in Thursday night’s State of the Union address, part of populist-oriented… -
media mention March 4, 2024 The Guardian: Private Equity Prepares for a Boon From Congress
Some of largest and most profitable companies in the US are primed to save billions of dollars from a congressional tax deal that critics say gives “billions in tax credits to the biggest corporations while giving pennies to middle-class children and families”. And private equity funds could be among the deal’s biggest beneficiaries, a Guardian analysis suggests. The tax cuts passed the House of Representatives at the end of January as part of an agreement that pairs handouts for businesses with a moderate expansion of the child tax credit. The Senate could vote on the bill over the coming weeks, and the White House has indicated that Joe Biden would sign it into law.
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media mention March 4, 2024 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: PNC Bank, PPG Industries Among Companies Paying Less Than the Federal Tax Rate
WASHINGTON — More than a dozen Pennsylvania companies — including a handful in the Pittsburgh area — paid less than the 21% federal corporate income tax rate from 2018 to 2022, according to a study released Thursday by a progressive research group.
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report February 29, 2024 Corporate Tax Avoidance in the First Five Years of the Trump Tax Law
The Trump tax law overhaul cut the federal corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, but during the first five years it has been in effect, most profitable corporations paid considerably less than that.
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media mention February 21, 2024 The Hill: Trump Tax Cuts on the Line in 2024 Election
The 2017 Trump tax cuts are on the line in the election this year, with Republicans hoping a sweep of Congress and the White House will allow them to extend the former president’s signature law. Democrats opposed the law when Trump was in power but have supported extending certain cuts, such as the decreased tax rates for people making less than $400,000 a year. Democrats do not want a blanket extension, which would cost nearly $4 trillion over the next decade.
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brief February 2, 2024 Impacts of the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act
The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act passed by the House of Representatives on January 31 is a compromise between lawmakers who want to address child poverty and… -
report January 17, 2024 Ongoing Use of Offshore Tax Havens Demonstrates the Need for the Global Minimum Tax
Key Findings To avoid taxation, American corporations use accounting gimmicks that make profits appear to be earned in foreign jurisdictions which tax corporate profits very lightly or not at all.… -
media mention January 17, 2024 Yahoo Finance: Lawmakers Ink a Bipartisan Tax Deal to Expand the Child Tax Credit
A powerful bipartisan duo announced a significant tax deal Tuesday that would combine a temporary expansion of the child tax credit with long-sought provisions for the business world. Read more. -
media mention January 17, 2024 Axios: Bipartisan Deal Would Expand Child Tax Credit, Lift Half-Million Children Out of Poverty
Congressional committee chairs reached a deal Tuesday that would expand the federal child tax credit, after three years of pushing by Democrats and progressives. Read more. -
media mention January 12, 2024 The Guardian: US Corporations Push to Roll Back Trump-Era Tax Policies They Once Endorsed
An agreement is emerging that ties the corporate tax breaks to an increase in support for vulnerable American families. Read more. -
media mention January 12, 2024 Washington Post: Behind Closed Doors, Trump Eyes Second Round of Corporate tax Cuts
Donald Trump’s campaign team says the former president would prioritize cutting taxes for working-class families and small businesses if he returns to the White House. But privately, Trump has told… -
media mention January 11, 2024 Washington Post: Congress Nears Deal to Partially Restore Biden’s Expanded Child Tax Credit
Congressional lawmakers are closing in on a deal that would partially revive President Biden’s expanded tax credit for lower-income families in exchange for extending tax incentives favored by business interests,… -
blog December 21, 2023 Everything You Need to Know About Proposals to Better Tax Billionaires
Tax policy may not be on the minds of most Americans during the final weeks of 2023, but billionaires with an eye on their own tax bills have been riveted by developments in D.C.
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report December 7, 2023 The Estate Tax is Irrelevant to More Than 99 Percent of Americans
The federal estate tax has reached historic lows. In 2019, only 8 of every 10,000 people who died left an estate large enough to trigger the tax. Legislative changes under presidents of both parties have increased the basic exemption from the estate tax over the past 20 years. This has cut the share of adults leaving behind taxable estates down from more than 2 percent to well under 1 percent.
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blog December 1, 2023 With the Moore vs. United States Case, the Supreme Court Could Unleash Chaos on Our Tax System
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will begin hearing oral arguments in Moore vs. United States, which could become the most important tax case in a century. A broad ruling could destabilize our tax system, enrich many profitable corporations, and widen existing economic and racial inequalities.
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blog November 13, 2023 The Latest Convoluted Arguments in Favor of Rich People Not Paying Taxes
Two Senate hearings last week focused on how the richest Americans are avoiding and evading taxes in ways that ordinary Americans could hardly imagine. All the experts brought in to… -
blog October 25, 2023 On Corporate Tax Avoidance, Critics Take Aim at ITEP – and Miss
In identifying companies that avoid taxes, ITEP presented evidence that our federal corporate income tax was not working the way most Americans think it should work. The public and lawmakers paid attention, including President Biden who then made the case that this demonstrated the need for reform. As a result, Congress enacted the corporate minimum tax, to make the tax system a bit closer to what most Americans want it to be. If you look closely at this, you might just see an example of democracy working.
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media mention October 23, 2023 TIME: How Giant Corporations Can Still Get Out of Paying Taxes
For decades, multinational corporations—especially those based in the U.S.—have funneled billions of dollars in profits to tax havens, earning even more money for their shareholders. Read more. -
blog October 6, 2023 The Campaign by Democratic Former Officials to Stop Taxes on the Wealthy
One of the most attention-grabbing anti-tax campaigns at work today is called SAFE, which stands for Saving America’s Family Enterprises. But it might as well mean Saving Aristocrats From Everything… -
blog September 15, 2023 Kyrsten Sinema’s Latest Fight to Protect Tax Breaks for Private Equity
Sen. Sinema’s bill to stop a seemingly arcane business tax increase that was enacted as part of the 2017 Trump tax law would be hugely beneficial to the private equity industry.
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brief August 7, 2023 Weakening the SALT Cap Would Make House Tax Package More Expensive and More Tilted in Favor of the Wealthiest
The three tax bills that cleared the House Ways and Means Committee in June are reportedly stalled due to some House Republicans’ demands that the package include provisions weakening the $10,000 cap on deductions for state and local taxes (SALT). Modifying the House tax package in this way would make it much more expensive while benefiting the richest fifth of taxpayers almost exclusively.