The problem of offshore tax avoidance by American corporations could grow much worse under President Donald Trump’s proposal to adopt a “territorial” tax system, which would exempt the offshore profits of American corporations from U.S. taxes. This change would increase the already substantial benefits American corporations obtain when they use accounting gimmicks to make their profits appear to be earned in a foreign country that has no corporate income tax or has one that is extremely low or easy to avoid.
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 September 6, 2017 Turning Loopholes into Black Holes: Trump’s Territorial Tax Proposal Would Increase Corporate Tax Avoidance
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media mention September 1, 2017 CBS News Moneywatch: Can Trump’s Corporate Tax Cuts Help the Middle Class?
Fortune 500 companies now hold about $2.6 trillion in offshore cash, which leads to billions in lost federal taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. A set… -
blog August 31, 2017 Tax Reform Principles Released by GOP in August Raise More Questions Than They Answer
Before Wednesday, you may have forgotten about tax reform given that President Trump’s remarks on the Charlottesville white supremacist rally, as well as the first U.S. solar eclipse since 1979, and Hurricane Harvey, overshadowed most other news. But Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, which in theory is the starting place for any tax legislation, certainly tried to get the public to focus on their vision for tax reform. They released a “reason for tax reform” each day in August. Unfortunately, these “reasons” are a combination of ideas that their proposals fail to address and misleading assertions.
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blog August 30, 2017 Sorting Through the Fallacies in Trump’s Missouri Tax Speech
President Donald Trump spoke in Springfield, Missouri today about the need for a tax reform that provides “more jobs and higher wages for America” and “tax relief for middle-class families.” But the proposals the Trump administration has released so far would cut taxes for companies moving investment offshore and would provide most tax cuts to the richest one percent of taxpayers.
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media mention August 23, 2017 Think Progress: Trump Plans Major Tax Cut for the Rich But Americans Want the Exact Opposite
“Regardless of what state you live in, the Trump tax proposals were not created to benefit you unless you are really well-off,” Steve Wamhoff, senior fellow for federal tax policy… -
blog August 22, 2017 Inaccuracies Pile Up During Speaker Ryan’s Town Hall Meeting
On Monday, House Speaker Paul Ryan participated in a live-broadcast town hall meeting in his district in Wisconsin where he discussed tax reform, among other issues. One could credit Ryan for holding such a meeting, but sadly, anyone wishing to learn about the rationale for Ryan’s ideas on taxes would have been disappointed.
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media mention August 13, 2017 Washington Examiner: Mitch McConnell Faces Dug-in Democrats on Tax Reform
“There’s been more and more awareness that actually C-corporations are not paying 35 percent in taxes,” said Steven Wamhoff, a tax expert at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy,… -
blog July 26, 2017 Trump Touts Tax Cuts for the Wealthy as a Plan for Working People
Unless the administration takes a radically different direction on tax reform from what it has already proposed, its tax plan would be a monumental giveaway to the top 1 percent. The wealthiest one percent of households would receive 61 percent of all the Trump tax breaks, and would receive an average of $145,400 in 2018 alone.
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report July 20, 2017 Trump’s $4.8 Trillion Tax Proposals Would Not Benefit All States or Taxpayers Equally
The broadly outlined tax proposals released by the Trump administration would not benefit all taxpayers equally and they would not benefit all states equally either. Several states would receive a share of the total resulting tax cuts that is less than their share of the U.S. population. Of the dozen states receiving the least by this measure, seven are in the South. The others are New Mexico, Oregon, Maine, Idaho and Hawaii.
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media mention July 11, 2017 The Hill: Repealing Obamacare Has Always Been about Tax Cuts for the Rich
Below is an excerpt of an op-ed by ITEP Senior Fellow Steve Wamhoff that was published in The Hill on July 11, 2017 Does moving a tax cut for the… -
blog June 15, 2017 Which States Benefit from the Tax Cuts in the GOP Health Plan?
Congressional Republicans’ plans to repeal the two largest tax increases on individuals that were enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would disproportionately benefit residents of Connecticut, New York, the District of Columbia and 10 other states. The remaining states would receive a share of the tax cuts that is less than their share of the total U.S. population.
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blog June 8, 2017 Kansas May Have Saved Us All
Sitting in the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC, hidden in the jumble of Americana like Thomas Jefferson’s desk, Michelle Obama’s inaugural gown and the ruby slippers worn in the Wizard of Oz, is a napkin with a drawing on it. Probably one of the least known exhibits in the museum, this napkin, quietly hiding behind glass lest some child wandering from a school group wipe his nose on it, has on several occasions destroyed the finances of the federal government and several state governments, most recently in Kansas.