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 March 4, 2021 CNBC: Senate Democrats’ plan to curb eligibility for third stimulus check cuts off 12 million adults
The new income caps would mean that 11.8 million fewer adults and 4.6 million fewer kids would receive a third stimulus payment, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy calculates.… -
blog March 3, 2021 New Estimates on Senate’s Slightly Revised Cash Payment
As the Senate takes up the COVID relief bill passed by the House last week, Senate Democrats have proposed to lower the income level at which the $1,400 cash payments would be phased out. New estimates from ITEP demonstrate that, for most people, the change would make no difference.
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blog March 1, 2021 Senator Warren Introduces Federal Wealth Tax Legislation
With the onslaught of news about billionaire wealth soaring while low- and moderate-income families have trouble making ends meet, a federal wealth tax makes good economic and fiscal sense—and the public supports it. One poll found that 64 percent of respondents favor the idea, including a majority of Republicans.
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blog February 26, 2021 How the Minimum Wage Is Becoming a Tax Issue for Congress
The federal minimum wage is almost comically low. At $7.25 an hour, it is 29 percent below its inflation-adjusted peak in the 1960s. Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour would lift 900,000 Americans out of poverty. A solid 61 percent of voters support the idea. A majority of lawmakers in both the House and Senate support at least some version of a minimum wage hike. The popular $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan includes a measure that would raise the minimum wage over the next few years to $15. So, what is the problem? And why are lawmakers now talking about using the tax code to mandate a higher minimum wage?
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blog February 19, 2021 Enforcing Current Tax Law Makes Financial Sense
While lawmakers disagree sharply over what our tax law should look like, there should be no argument that we must enforce tax laws currently on the books. Yet, Republican Congresses systematically weakened the IRS’s ability to enforce tax laws by defunding the agency, resulting in hundreds of billions in lost tax revenue every year. Two bills introduced in the U.S. House would address this by increasing tax audits of big corporations and high-income individuals and by providing more resources to the IRS.
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blog February 18, 2021 Enacting a Federal Wealth Tax Is Playing the Long Game
Should lawmakers enact laws that they believe are sensible and constitutional, or should they shape their legislative agenda around what they believe ideological Supreme Court justices will allow? This is a dilemma facing Americans who support a federal wealth tax.
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media mention February 16, 2021 CBS News: Stimulus bill would boost incomes of poorest Americans by nearly $4,000
nder the plan advancing in the House Ways and Means Committee, the next stimulus bill would send $1,400 to eligible people, as well as expand the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and… -
media mention February 14, 2021 CNBC: A new child tax credit expansion could provide monthly income. Some question whether the help is too much or too little
The credit would phase out for those making above those levels, where it would be reduced and then plateau at $2,000 per child. It would be capped for individuals with… -
blog February 9, 2021 Details of House Democrats’ Cash Payments and Tax Credit Expansions
The House Ways and Means Committee published its proposal for the cash payments, tax provisions and other changes that would make up part of the $1.9 trillion COVID relief legislation that President Joe Biden called for a few weeks ago.
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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.
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media mention January 20, 2021 MarketWatch: Here’s the Maximum Amount Biden’s Stimulus Checks and Tax Credits Would Deliver to America’s Poorest Families
For the bottom 60% of incomes, the new round of direct payments, plus the two expanded tax credits would average $3,520, equaling around 11% of annual income, the Institute on… -
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).
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media mention January 12, 2021 Yahoo! Finance: $2,000 stimulus checks would be a massive boost for America’s poorest
America’s poorest families would see their incomes grow by more than quarter if the $2,000 stimulus check proposal that President-elect Joe Biden supports passes, according to a new analysis. The 20% of… -
media mention January 7, 2021 The Wall Street Journal: Biden Tax-Increase Agenda Revived as Democrats Win Senate
Now, some of Mr. Biden’s ideas are much more likely to become law, said Steve Wamhoff of the progressive Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, who said that the president-elect’s… -
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.
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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.
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media mention December 16, 2020 The American Prospect: The Day One Agenda for Corporate Taxes
Even without Congress, President-elect Biden’s regulatory agencies can fix a lot of problems with the corporate tax code. BY STEVE WAMHOFF, MATTHEW GARDNER The public has long told pollsters that… -
media mention November 10, 2020 CNBC: Here’s What’s Ahead for President-elect Biden’s Tax Plan
Another idea that might stand a chance in a split Congress could be to properly fund the IRS so it can pursue larger targets, rather than going through the contentious… -
media mention October 30, 2020 Yahoo! Finance: Here’s How the Biden Tax Plan Would Affect Each State
Biden’s plan would generate over $289 billion in tax revenue, according to research from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). About 1.9% of the U.S. population would see… -
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.
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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.
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media mention October 13, 2020 Washington Times: Spending plans by Biden, Trump would hike federal debt by $5 trillion over 10 years
Under his plan, 97% of the tax increases would fall on the top 1% of earners, according to new projections from the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “Only… -
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.
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media mention October 3, 2020 FAIR: Steve Wamhoff on Trump’s Taxes
We’ll talk about takeaways from Trump’s taxes with Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Listen -
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.