A federal wealth tax on the richest 0.1 percent of Americans is a viable approach for Congress to raise revenue and is one of the few approaches that could truly address rising inequality. As this report explains, an annual federal tax of only 1 percent on the portion of any taxpayer’s net worth exceeding the threshold for belonging to the wealthiest 0.1 percent (likely to be about $32.2 million in 2020) could raise $1.3 trillion over a decade.
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.
-
report January 23, 2019 The U.S. Needs a Federal Wealth Tax
-
blog January 23, 2019 Thoughts about a Federal Wealth Tax and How It Could Raise Revenue, Address Income Inequality
Wealth inequality is much greater than income inequality. The 1 percent of Americans with the highest incomes receive about a fifth of the total income in the United States. In contrast, the top 1 percent of wealth holders in the United States own 42 percent of the nation’s wealth, according to estimates from University of California at Berkley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.
-
blog January 8, 2019 How to Think About the 70% Top Tax Rate Proposed by Ocasio-Cortez (and Multiple Scholars)
The uproar deliberately steers clear of any real policy discussion about what a significantly higher marginal tax rate would mean. Her critics are mostly the same lawmakers who enacted a massive tax cut for the rich last year that was not debated seriously or supported by serious research. Meanwhile, multiple scholarly studies conclude a 70 percent top tax rate would be an optimal way to tax the very rich. Ocasio-Cortez has brought more attention to the very real need to raise revenue and do it in a progressive way.
-
media mention December 11, 2018 Washington Post: In Early Win for Party’s Left, House Democrats Back off Tax Rule
Henry Connelly, a spokesman for Pelosi, said the rule was unnecessary to prevent Democrats from hiking taxes on the middle class. He also noted that House Republicans waived their rule… -
blog November 19, 2018 New ITEP Report on Depreciation Breaks: The Most Important Tax Giveaway that People Don’t Know About
Many Americans sense that the tax code is riddled with unnecessary and costly breaks for big business, but if asked to name one, few would reply “accelerated depreciation.” While they may seem arcane, tax breaks like “full expensing” and other types of accelerated depreciation are among the central problems in our tax code. A new report from ITEP makes the case that any serious tax reform would repeal or sharply curb these provisions.
-
report November 19, 2018 The Failure of Expensing and Other Depreciation Tax Breaks
Congress permitted full expensing only for five years, which will encourage businesses to speed up investments they would have made later. Republicans in Congress have discussed making the expensing provision permanent. This report argues that Congress should move in the other direction and repeal not just the full expensing provision but even some of the permanent accelerated depreciation breaks in the tax code, for several reasons.
-
media mention November 16, 2018 Washington Post: Democrats Face Early Division in Rules over Taxes
The richest fifth of taxpayers are those who make more than $108,000 annually, said Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Some… -
report November 14, 2018 A Fair Way to Limit Tax Deductions
The cap on federal tax deductions for state and local taxes (SALT) that is in effect now under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) is a flawed provision but repealing it outright would be costly and provide a windfall to the rich. Congress should consider replacing the SALT cap with a different type of limit on deductions that would avoid both of these outcomes. Using the ITEP microsimulation tax model, this report provides revenue estimates and distributional estimates for several such options, assuming they would be in effect in 2019.
-
blog October 23, 2018 Tax Policies Have Increased Inequality, and So Would Entitlement Cuts
Conversations about economics often take place on different planets, it seems. Economists and analysts note rising inequality in America. And it’s not just lefty analysts. The credit ratings firm Moody’s chimed in earlier this month, warning that inequality “is a key social consideration that will impact the U.S.’ credit profile through multiple rating factors, including economic, institutional and fiscal strength.”
-
October 5, 2018 Concerned about Trump-family tax gaming? His law may prompt others to dodge.
“The IRS is wildly outgunned,” says Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a think tank in Washington. “You can’t keep cutting IRS funding and not expect more things like what The New York Times wrote about the Trumps. That’s bound to happen even more now.”
-
media mention October 4, 2018 Washington Post: How big developers like Trump benefit from web of tax breaks
[Real estate investors] can fall behind on their debts and still face fewer tax penalties for having the debt forgiven than other kinds of investors, according to Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Trump took advantage of that, Wamhoff says, when he couldn’t repay debts on his Atlantic City casinos in the 1990s and early 2000s.
-
blog September 27, 2018 So-Called “Universal Savings Accounts” in Tax Cuts 2.0 Are a Giveaway to the Most Affluent Taxpayers
This week, House Republicans have taken up bills they call tax cuts “2.0.” Most of the attention, so far, has focused on the bill that extends—at great cost—the temporary parts of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). But other legislation in the package contains provisions that make the whole deal even more tilted toward the richest households, including one that would create “Universal Savings Accounts.” Far from being universal, these new savings vehicles would benefit the same high-income households that enjoy the bulk of the tax cuts from TCJA.
-
blog September 11, 2018 Repealing the Federal Tax Law’s Cap on State and Local Tax (SALT) Deductions Is No Improvement
National and State-by-State Data Available for Download Nearly Two-Thirds of Benefits from Repealing the SALT Cap Would Go to the Richest 1 Percent Lawmakers who opposed the Tax Cuts and… -
blog September 10, 2018 Latest GOP Tax Package Is Also Skewed Toward the Rich
ITEP’s analysis found that when all the major provisions of TCJA are in effect, the richest fifth of households will receive 71 percent of the law’s benefits. It also found that if the temporary provisions are extended at through 2026, the richest fifth of households will receive 65 percent of the benefits of that extension that year.
-
media mention August 23, 2018 New Hampshire Business: Winners and Losers Under the New Tax Plan
The new law also doubles the standard deduction, making it likely that fewer business owners will itemize on their returns, and that could have a negative impact on things like… -
media mention August 15, 2018 Gannette: NJ Suit Over SALT Deduction Would Help the State’s Richest 1.5 Percent the Most
That reality has led some who joined Democrats in complaining about way tax cuts were distributed to criticize efforts to overturn the SALT cap. “The Trump tax law gives away the store to the… -
media mention July 11, 2018 New York Times: $111 Billion in Tax Cuts for the Top 1 Percent
Think of it this way: Income inequality has soared in recent decades, with the wealthy pulling away from everyone else and the upper-middle-class doing better than the working class or… -
media mention July 11, 2018 Vox: America’s Getting $10 Trillion in Tax Cuts, and 20% of Them Are Going to the Richest 1%
The first analysis, from the Institute on Taxation and Economic and Policy, a liberal-leaning think tank, found that from 2001 through 2018, changes to the federal tax code have reduced… -
media mention July 11, 2018 The Hill: Tax Cuts Since 2000 Have Mostly Benefited High Earners
Households in the top fifth of income levels have received 65 percent of the value of tax changes enacted since 2000, according to a report released Wednesday by the left-leaning… -
media mention July 11, 2018 Yahoo! Finance: The Steep Cost of Tax Cuts Since 2001
Tax cuts enacted since the turn of the 21st century have added nearly $6 trillion to the deficit while disproportionately benefiting wealthy households, according to a new study from the… -
report July 11, 2018 Federal Tax Cuts in the Bush, Obama, and Trump Years
Since 2000, tax cuts have reduced federal revenue by trillions of dollars and disproportionately benefited well-off households. From 2001 through 2018, significant federal tax changes have reduced revenue by $5.1 trillion, with nearly two-thirds of that flowing to the richest fifth of Americans.
-
news release July 5, 2018 New Report Highlights Growing Tax Breaks for Wealthy Real Estate Investors Like Donald Trump
Following is a statement by Steve Wamhoff, the director of federal tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, regarding the report released today by Democrats on the… -
report June 6, 2018 The New International Corporate Tax Rules: Problems and Solutions
The nation’s corporate tax system has been dysfunctional for decades. Unfortunately, the recently enacted Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) fails to solve fundamental problems facing the corporate tax and, in some ways, makes these problems even worse.
-
media mention May 24, 2018 Washington Post: NJ Democrats Loved the Idea of Taxing the Rich Until They Could Actually Do It
A spokesman for Sweeney, the state Senate president, said families earning over $1.1 million in New Jersey already face an average $738 tax hike under the GOP law, citing data… -
blog May 21, 2018 Debate Over New Jersey’s Millionaires and ITEP’s Data
New Jersey’s new governor, Phil Murphy campaigned on a promise to raise state income taxes on millionaires, a proposal that is supported by 70 percent of the state and was, until recently, backed by New Jersey’s Senate President, Steve Sweeney. In recent months, Sweeney changed his position on the proposed millionaires tax and called for an increase in New Jersey’s corporate tax instead. The idea of hiking taxes on corporations is not a bad one, particularly since corporations received a windfall from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. But Sweeney’s new opposition to an income tax hike for the state’s richest residents seems to be based on an erroneous reading of ITEP’s data.