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.

blog February 1, 2021
Dems, Don’t Repeal the SALT Cap. Do This Instead.

Ever since it was enacted as part of the Trump-GOP tax law, some Democrats in Congress have been pushing to repeal the cap on federal tax deductions for state and local taxes (SALT). Recently several Democratic members have suggested that repeal of the cap should be part of COVID relief legislation.

While the cap on SALT deductions is problematic, repealing it without making other reforms would result in larger tax breaks for the rich. Instead, lawmakers should consider ITEP’s proposal to replace the SALT cap with a broader limit on tax breaks for the rich that would accomplish Biden’s goal of raising income taxes on people making more than $400,000, as he proposed on the campaign trail.
brief January 15, 2021
ANALYSIS: Cash and Tax Provisions in Biden’s Economic Recovery Plan

The $1.9 trillion economic recovery plan, known as the American Rescue Plan, announced by President-elect Biden contains, among other provisions, expanded cash payments and changes to the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).
blog January 6, 2021
How the Proposed $2,000 Cash Payments Compare to the $600 Already Provided by Congress

On Dec. 28, the House of Representatives passed the Caring for Americans with Supplemental Help (CASH) Act of 2020, which would increase the cash payment recently provided by Congress from $600 per person to $2,000 per person, among other changes. New estimates from ITEP compare the impacts of $2,000 payments to $600 payments.
map December 21, 2020
National and State-by-State Estimates of New $600 Cash Payments

The House and Senate are about to pass the first COVID-19 relief legislation since the CARES Act was enacted in March. The new relief package includes, among other provisions, cash payments of $600 per person, which is half as large as the payments provided under the CARES Act, but also extends payments to spouses and children of certain undocumented immigrants who were left out of the previous payments.
blog October 22, 2020
Trump Says Taxes Will Be Too High on the 2% Who Pay More Under Biden’s Plan

The Trump campaign has failed to convince the public that large numbers of Americans would face tax hikes under Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s tax plan. The claim has been widely discredited. For example, ITEP found that the federal taxes that people pay directly would rise for just 1.9 percent of taxpayers in the U.S., and that number does not vary much by state. So, Fox News and other conservative voices are trying out a new argument: Biden’s tax plan would be too burdensome for that 1.9 percent.
blog October 13, 2020
Supreme Court Would Provide Massive Tax Cut for the Rich if It Strikes Down Affordable Care Act

If the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act (ACA), as argued for by the Trump administration and the president’s nominee to the court, Amy Coney Barrett, one under-appreciated result will be a tax break of roughly $40 billion annually for about 3 percent of Americans, who all have incomes of more than $200,000.
blog October 7, 2020
New ITEP Report Shows Few Taxpayers in Each State Paying More Under Biden’s Tax Plan

An ITEP report finds that taxes that people pay directly would stay the same or go down in 2022 for 98.1 percent of Americans under President-elect Joe Biden’s tax plan.
blog September 29, 2020
A 2017 Tax Provision Could Have Restrained Trump’s Tax Dodging, But Congress Just Weakened It

President Trump and Republicans in Congress passed up almost every opportunity to shut down special tax breaks and loopholes for real estate investors when they enacted their 2017 tax law. They did, however, include some welcome provisions to limit how business owners use losses to avoid taxes, and these provisions could potentially limit the sort of tax dodging perfected by Trump. Unfortunately, Congress temporarily reversed these limits with some provisions tucked into the CARES Act that was enacted in March, and this may help Trump and others like him to continue avoiding taxes.
blog September 29, 2020
Real Tax Reform Never Had a Chance Under Trump

Congress is certainly to blame both for providing a ridiculously lenient tax code for the super-wealthy and for preventing the IRS from enforcing even the existing weak limits in the law on tax avoidance. But make no mistake, one person is primarily responsible for the farce that is Donald Trump’s tax dodging, and that is Donald Trump. For years, he has actively and loudly supported special tax breaks and tax shelters, making him anything but a passive bystander to their creation.
news release September 27, 2020
ITEP: New York Times’ Trump Tax Revelation Confirms What We Already Know

“The New York Times revelation of Trump’s years of dodging taxes confirms something we already know. There are two tax systems: one that most of us follow, and another far more generous one for the very rich.”
blog September 18, 2020
New ITEP Estimates on Biden’s Proposal to Expand the Child Tax Credit

On Thursday, former Vice President Joe Biden announced that his tax plan would include a provision passed by House Democrats to temporarily expand the Child Tax Credit (CTC), potentially lifting millions of children out of poverty.

Estimates from ITEP show that this change would benefit most families with children—more than 83 million children live in households that would benefit if this was in effect in 2020—but the most dramatic boost would go to low-income families.
news release August 31, 2020
Trump’s Payroll Tax Executive Order Creates Problems, Fails to Help Those Most in Need

Media contact Following is a statement by Steve Wamhoff, federal policy director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, regarding President Trump’s executive order that would suspend the employee…
blog August 18, 2020
Analysis: Trump’s Proposed Capital Gains Break Almost Exclusively Benefits Top 1 Percent

On Aug. 13, President Trump pledged to cut the top federal income tax for capital gains to 15 percent. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that 99 percent of the benefits would go to the richest 1 percent of taxpayers. This is unsurprising given that only those with taxable income of nearly half a million dollars are subject to a capital gains tax rate higher than 15 percent.
blog August 17, 2020
Trump’s Executive Order on Social Security Payroll Taxes Is a Mess

President Trump’s executive order that would supposedly allow workers to delay paying Social Security taxes, along with his related public statements, have created a situation that is bizarre even by 2020 standards.
blog July 29, 2020
Biden’s Minimum Corporate Tax Proposal: Yes, Please Limit Amazon’s Tax Breaks

A large majority of Americans want corporations to pay more taxes and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has several proposals to achieve that. The newest idea is to require corporations to pay a minimum tax equal to 15 percent of profits they report to shareholders and to the public if this is less than what they pay under regular corporate tax rules. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal quotes several critics of the proposal, but none of their points are convincing.
brief July 28, 2020
New Analysis Compares HEROES Act and HEALS Act, Disaggregates Data by Race and Income

The Health, Economic Assistance, Liability Protection and Schools (HEALS) Act released by Senate Republicans Monday includes a tax rebate that is slightly more generous than the one provided under the March CARES Act, but fails to correct most of the earlier act’s problems. House Democrats addressed these shortcomings in the May HEROES Act, a better starting place for negotiations over the next round of COVID-19 relief. ITEP has analyzed both acts to provide a detailed comparison of how the tax rebate provisions would affect families across the income spectrum and by race. Both measures would provide cash payments to a majority of individuals and families, but the HEROES Act goes farther and is more inclusive.
blog July 21, 2020
Biden Proposes to Fund Child Care and Elder Care by Shutting Down Tax Breaks for Real Estate Investors

On Tuesday, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden announced a $775 billion proposal to expand care options for children and elderly people, suggesting that the cost would be at least partly offset by paring back tax breaks for real estate investors.

Bigtime real estate investors are simply unaccustomed to operating without government subsidies provided through the tax code.
blog July 21, 2020
New ITEP Report on Trump’s Payroll Tax Holiday

While the White House hasn’t clarified what it is proposing, we know that a payroll tax cut would not be well-targeted. In a new report, ITEP estimates the effects of suspending Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes for employees and employers from September 1 through the end of the year. We find that 64 percent of the benefits would go to the richest 20 percent of Americans while 24 percent of the benefits would go to the richest 1 percent.
news release July 21, 2020
New Analysis: Payroll Tax Cut Would Cost $336 Billion, Benefit Top 1 Percent Most

Media contact Temporarily eliminating all federal payroll taxes through the end of the year would cost $336 billion, deliver 64 percent of its benefits to the richest 20 percent of…
report July 21, 2020
An Updated Analysis of a Potential Payroll Tax Holiday

ITEP estimates that if Congress and the president eliminated all Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes paid by employers and employees from Sept. 1 through the end of the year, 64 percent of the benefits would go the richest 20 percent of taxpayers and 24 percent of the benefits would go to the richest 1 percent of taxpayers, as illustrated in the table below. The total cost of this hypothetical proposal would be $336 billion.
blog July 17, 2020
SALT Cap Repeal Has No Place in COVID-19 Legislation: National and State-by-State Data

The Trump-GOP tax law enacted at the end of 2017 includes a $10,000 cap on the amount of state and local taxes (SALT) that people can deduct on their federal tax returns, and this is one of the few limits the law places on tax breaks for high-income people. Unfortunately, it is also the provision that some Democrats are most determined to remove.
report July 14, 2020
Who Pays Taxes in America in 2020?

Having a sound understanding of who pays taxes and how much is a particularly relevant question now as the nation grapples with a health and economic crisis that is devastating lower-income families and requiring all levels of government to invest more in keeping individuals, families and communities afloat. This year, the share of all taxes paid by the richest 1 percent of Americans (24.3 percent) will be just a bit higher than the share of all income going to this group (20.9 percent). The share of all taxes paid by the poorest fifth of Americans (2 percent) will be just a bit lower than the share of all income going to this group (2.8 percent).
blog July 9, 2020
Congressional Budget Office Confirms That IRS Budget Cuts Lose Money and Benefit the Rich

Lawmakers often claim that they are “saving” taxpayers money by slashing federal spending, but the truth is that these cuts often are counterproductive and costly in the long-term. One type of budget-cutting has costs that are immediate and obvious—cuts to the IRS, the agency that collects the revenue that pays for federal spending. A new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirms that lawmakers’ anti-government, IRS funding-cuts zeal has increased the deficit.
report June 30, 2020
Republican Tax Credit Proposal Would Provide New Breaks to Tax Avoiders Like Amazon and Netflix

While lawmakers of both parties and policy experts discuss various ways to respond to the continuing COVID-19 crisis and resulting economic downturn, Republicans in Congress are offering a new solution. Their idea, which is still being discussed, is to waive existing limits on business tax credits. This could benefit corporations that are profitable but that nonetheless pay no taxes or very little in taxes because of the many tax breaks and legal loopholes they already enjoy.
blog June 18, 2020
National and State-by-State Estimates of House-Passed Improvements in Tax Credits for Workers and Children

Among other important provisions, the HEROES Act includes reforms to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC) to make these tax credits more effective in helping working people and helping parents afford the costs of raising children.