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.
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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report April 9, 2024 Who Pays Taxes in America in 2024
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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,… -
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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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.… -
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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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.
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report July 11, 2023 ‘Fair Share Act’ Would Strengthen Medicare and Social Security Taxes
The Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act would reform the taxes that Americans pay to finance these two important programs so that the richest 2 percent of Americans pay these taxes on most of their income the way that middle-class taxpayers already do.
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report June 29, 2023 Corporations Reap Billions in Tax Breaks Under ‘Bonus Depreciation’
Since TCJA expanded tax breaks for “accelerated depreciation” starting in 2018, it has reduced taxes by nearly $67 billion for the 25 profitable corporations that benefited the most. Congress is now looking at extending this policy.
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blog June 22, 2023 Congressional Republicans Distort a New Report on the Global Minimum Tax
The notion that we are better off allowing our corporations to pretend their profits are earned in the Cayman Islands or Ireland simply defies logic and the facts. There is no scenario in which the U.S. would be better by ditching the international agreement that the government already negotiated.
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brief June 11, 2023 Trio of GOP Tax Bills Would Expand Corporate Tax Breaks While Doing Little for Americans Who Most Need Help
The trio of tax bills that cleared the House Ways and Means Committee in June include tax cuts that would mostly benefit the richest one percent of Americans and foreign investors.
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blog May 25, 2023 Congress Should Consider Attaching Work Requirements to the Biggest Tax Break for the Rich
Instead of focusing on low-income people who are already mostly employed or facing significant barriers to employment, lawmakers who want to encourage labor force participation should revisit existing tax breaks subsidizing wealthy individuals who live off their assets rather than work.
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blog May 9, 2023 Congress Should Raise Taxes on the Rich, But That’s a Totally Separate Issue from the Debt Ceiling
Congress absolutely should raise taxes on the rich and on corporations to generate revenue and improve the fairness of our tax code. President Biden has several proposals to do exactly that. But this is an entirely separate question from whether we should raise the debt ceiling to honor the debts the nation has already incurred and avoid an economic apocalypse.
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report May 4, 2023 Extending Temporary Provisions of the 2017 Trump Tax Law: National and State-by-State Estimates
The push by Congressional Republicans to make the provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent would cost nearly $300 billion in the first year and deliver the bulk of the tax benefits to the wealthiest Americans.
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report March 10, 2023 Revenue-Raising Proposals in President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Plan
President Biden’s latest budget proposal includes trillions of dollars of new revenue that would be paid by the richest Americans, both directly through increases in personal income, Medicare and estate taxes, and indirectly through increases in corporate income taxes.
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blog February 14, 2023 The No Tax Breaks for Outsourcing Act Is Needed More than Ever
The new corporate minimum tax enacted as part of last year’s Inflation Reduction Act will address some of the worst corporate tax dodging, but what else is needed? A group of Democrats have answered this question with the No Tax Breaks for Outsourcing Act.
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blog January 13, 2023 GAO Report Confirms: Trump Tax Law Cut Corporate Taxes to Rock Bottom
A new report from the Government Accountability Office finds the average effective federal income tax rate paid by large, profitable corporations fell to 9 percent in the first year the Trump tax law was in effect, and the share of such companies paying nothing at all rose to 34 percent that year.
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blog January 11, 2023 “Fair Tax” Plan Would Abolish the IRS and Shift Federal Taxes from the Wealthy to the Rest of Us
The “Fair Tax” bill would impose a 30 percent federal sales tax on everything we buy – groceries, cars, homes, health care – and lead to a giant tax shift from the well-off to everyone else.