For years, a subset of the well-to-do and well-connected have been able to exploit the intricacies of our global financial system to shelter their income and investments from taxation. The U.S. government took a stand against this type of willful tax evasion with the passage of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act – or FATCA – enacted as part of the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act of 2010.
Publication Search Results
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report May 2, 2017 Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA): A Critical Anti-Tax Evasion Tool
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brief May 1, 2017 Why States That Offer the Deduction for Federal Income Taxes Paid Get It Wrong
With many states currently facing budget shortfalls—whether due to weak economic recovery after the Great Recession, struggling commodity prices, or self-inflicted tax cuts—and all states bracing for possible federal budget cuts in areas from education to health care to infrastructure, states are unlikely to be able to continue providing high-quality services to their residents without raising new revenue. In this context, states must find ways to generate additional revenue without increasing taxes on individuals and families who are already struggling to make ends meet and may bear the biggest brunt of federal funding cuts.
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report April 27, 2017 What Real Tax Reform Should Look Like
If lawmakers truly want to create an environment in which economic mobility is possible for more working people, budget-busting tax cuts are the wrong way to achieve this goal. Dramatic tax giveaways would force cuts to programs that provide early education, health care, job training, affordable housing, nutrition assistance, and other vital services that promote economic mobility. Further, current tax proposals from Congress and the Trump Administration defy what most Americans would consider true reform and, instead, embrace supply-side economic theories. This policy brief outlines two sensible, broad objectives for meaningful federal tax reform and discusses six tax policies that can help achieve these objectives.
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report April 27, 2017 3 Percent and Dropping: State Corporate Tax Avoidance in the Fortune 500, 2008 to 2015
The trend is clear: states are experiencing a rapid decline in state corporate income tax revenue. Despite rebounding and even booming bottom lines for many corporations, this downward trend has become increasingly apparent in recent years. Since our last analysis of these data, in 2014, the state effective corporate tax rate paid by profitable Fortune 500 corporations has declined, dropping from 3.1 percent to 2.9 percent of their U.S. profits. A number of factors are driving this decline, including: a race to the bottom by states providing significant “incentives” for specific companies to relocate or stay put; blatant manipulation of loopholes in state tax systems by corporate accountants; significant cuts in state corporate tax rates; and the erosion of state corporate tax bases, largely due to ill-advised state-level linkages to the federal system.
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report April 25, 2017 State & Local Tax Contributions of Young Undocumented Immigrants (2017)
This report specifically examines the state and local tax contributions of undocumented immigrants who are currently enrolled or immediately eligible for DACA and the fiscal implications of various policy changes. The report includes information on the national impact (Table 1) and provides a state-by-state breakdown (Appendix 1).
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report April 24, 2017 Comparing the Distributional Impact of Revenue Options in Alaska
Alaska is facing a significant budget gap because of a sharp decline in the oil tax and royalty revenue that has traditionally been relied upon to fund government. This report examines five approaches for replacing some of the oil revenue that is no longer available: enacting a broad personal income tax, state sales tax, payroll tax, investment income tax, or cutting the Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD). Any of the options examined in this report could make a meaningful contribution toward closing Alaska’s budget gap. To allow for comparisons across options, this report examines policy changes designed to generate $500 million annually. This amount would be insufficient to close Alaska’s $3 billion budget gap, but any of these options could be modified to raise additional revenue, or could be incorporated into a larger package of changes designed to close the gap.
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report April 24, 2017 State and Local Tax Contributions of Undocumented Californians: County-by- County Data
Public debates in California over immigrants, specifically around undocumented immigrants, often suffer from insufficient and inaccurate information about the contributions of undocumented immigrants, particularly their tax contributions at the local and state level. The fact of the matter is undocumented immigrants living in the California pay millions of dollars each year in local taxes to the counties where they live (estimated to be more than $1.5 billion) and collectively an estimated $3 billion combined in state and local taxes. A little more than half of the total state and local taxes undocumented immigrants in California pay flow to local governments.
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report April 13, 2017 10 Things You Should Know on Tax Day
Every year around Tax Day, ITEP updates some of its key reports to help put the nation’s tax system in proper context. This year, as people around the country march to demand President Trump release his tax returns and as policymakers consider overhauling our federal tax system, these reports are especially critical. Read 10 Things You Should Know on Tax Day.
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report April 13, 2017 Who Pays Taxes in America in 2017?
All Americans pay taxes. Most of us pay federal and state income taxes. Everyone who works pays federal payroll taxes. Everyone who buys gasoline pays federal and state gas taxes. Everyone who owns or rents a home directly or indirectly pays property taxes. Anyone who shops pays sales taxes in most states.
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report April 13, 2017 Fifteen (of Many) Reasons We Need Corporate Tax Reform
Profitable Fortune 500 companies in a range of economic sectors have been remarkably successful in manipulating the tax system to avoid paying even a dime in tax on billions of dollars in U.S. profits. This ITEP report examines a select, diverse group of 15 corporations’ tax situations to shed light on the widespread nature of corporate tax avoidance. As a group, these companies paid no federal income tax on $21 billion in profits in 2016, and they paid almost no federal income tax on $111 billion in profits over the past five years. All but one received federal tax rebates in 2016, and almost all paid exceedingly low rates over five years.