Recent Work

The Final Trump-GOP Tax Plan: National and 50-State Estimates for 2019 & 2027

December 16, 2017 • By ITEP Staff

The final Trump-GOP tax law provides most of its benefits to high-income households and foreign investors while raising taxes on many low- and middle-income Americans. The bill goes into effect in 2018 but the provisions directly affecting families and individuals all expire after 2025, with the exception of one provision that would raise their taxes. To get an idea of how the bill will affect Americans at different income levels in different years, this analysis focuses on the bill’s impacts in 2019 and 2027.

Multinational Corporations Would Receive $413 Billion in Tax Breaks from Congressional Repatriation Proposal

December 16, 2017 • By Richard Phillips

Rather than making companies pay what they owe, the final legislation reported out of conference proposes to tax accumulated offshore earnings at a rate lower than the 35 percent that they owe under current law. The final bill would tax offshore earnings being held as cash at a rate of 15.5 percent and tax all other offshore earnings at a rate of 8 percent. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, this proposal would allow U.S. companies to collectively pay about $339 billion in taxes on their offshore earnings, rather than the roughly $752 billion that they owe, meaning that…

Final Tax Bill Reported to Provide Senator Rubio With Much Smaller Improvement for Children than He Demanded

December 15, 2017 • By Steve Wamhoff

The latest news on the GOP tax bill is that, in order to secure the vote of Senator Marco Rubio, Republican leaders have agreed to expand the child tax credit — but only by a fraction of the amount that Rubio initially demanded.

GOP Leaders Scrounge Up Money to Lower Top Tax Rate for the Rich But Not to Help Low-Income Working Families with Children

December 15, 2017 • By Meg Wiehe

Republican leaders who rejected a proposal to have corporations pay a single percentage point higher tax rate to benefit families with children have tapped the exact same source of savings to provide more breaks for the richest 1 percent of taxpayers. The table below compares the number and share of households nationally and in all 50-states who would benefit from the proposal to reduce taxes for working families with children versus the ”compromise” to cut the top individual tax rate -- below either the House or Senate version – to 37 percent for couples with incomes above $1 million.

ITEP Resources for the Tax Reform Debate

December 14, 2017 • By ITEP Staff

ITEP researchers have produced new reports and analyses that look at various pieces of the tax bill, including: the share of tax cuts that will go to foreign investors; how the plans would affect the number of taxpayers that take the mortgage interest deduction or write off charitable contributions, and remaining problems with the bill in spite of proposed compromises on state and local tax deductions.

Private Schools Donors Likely to Win Big from Expanded Loophole in Tax Bill

December 14, 2017 • By Carl Davis

For years, private schools around the country have been making an unusual pitch to prospective donors: give us your money, and you’ll get so many state and federal tax breaks in return that you may end up turning a profit. Under tax legislation being considered in Congress right now, that pitch is about to become even more persuasive.

Tax Bill Would Increase Abuse of Charitable Giving Deduction, with Private K-12 Schools as the Biggest Winners

December 14, 2017 • By Carl Davis

In its rush to pass a major rewrite of the tax code before year’s end, Congress appears likely to enact a “tax reform” that creates, or expands, a significant number of tax loopholes.[1] One such loophole would reward some of the nation’s wealthiest individuals with a strategy for padding their own bank accounts by “donating” to support private K-12 schools. While a similar loophole exists under current law, its size and scope would be dramatically expanded by the legislation working its way through Congress.[2]

State Rundown 12/13: Supermajority Laws Considered in Some States Even as They Confound Others

December 13, 2017 • By ITEP Staff

Supermajority requirements for tax increases are proving a major obstacle to responsible budgeting in Oklahoma, while ballot initiatives are being filed to alter or abolish Oregon‘s similar requirement, but a similar requirement is slowly advancing toward the ballot in Florida nonetheless. Displeasure with agricultural property taxes are spawning both a ballot initiative drive and a […]

Latest “Compromise” for Tax Plan Is Even Worse than Previous Proposals, Would Reduce the Plans’ “Losers” by Less than 17,000 Taxpayers

December 13, 2017 • By Meg Wiehe, Steve Wamhoff

Earlier this week, ITEP explained that two possible “compromises” to improve the Senate tax bill would accomplish very little other than make the plan more expensive. Incredibly, Republican leaders are now discussing a third possible “compromise” that is even worse — a further reduction in the top personal income tax rate to 37%. This would […]

Parents of College Students: The Tax Plans’ Losers that No One Is Talking About

December 13, 2017 • By Steve Wamhoff

Parents of college students or kids in their last years of high school are more likely to face a tax hike than others under the tax legislation moving through Congress. Higher education has entered the tax debate because the House bill (but not the Senate bill) would repeal several provisions that make college and graduate education more accessible. But little thought has been given to how the tax bills would affect the parents of college students in more direct ways and make it difficult for them to finance college for their kids. If tax legislation were allowed a reasonable number…

All I Want for Christmas is a Clean DREAM Act

December 13, 2017 • By Misha Hill

As 2017 draws to close, Congress has yet to take legislative action to protect Dreamers. The young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children, and are largely working or in school, were protected by President Obama’s 2012 executive action, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). But in September, President Trump announced that he would end DACA in March 2018. Instead of honoring the work authorizations and protection from deportation that currently shields more than 685,000 young people, President Trump punted their lives and livelihood to a woefully divided Congress which is expected to take up legislation…

Updated Tax Contributions of Young Undocumented Immigrants

December 13, 2017 • By ITEP Staff

In September 2017, US Citizenship and Immigration Services released updated enrollment data for the program Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The updated data included estimates of the number of former DACA enrollees that were now legal permanent residents and those that failed to reapply or their reapplication was denied. The table below provides updated estimates of their tax contributions.

Who Is “America First” Under the Tax Plan? The Rich First, Foreign Investors Second, Then the Rest of Us.

December 12, 2017 • By Steve Wamhoff

In his inaugural speech, President Trump told the world that Washington would be driven by a principle of “America First.” But the tax plans moving through Congress only put the richest Americans first. Everyone else comes after foreign investors.

Treasury’s 1-Page Memo Reasserts False Claims that Tax Cuts Largely Pay for Themselves — But Only When Accompanied by Spending Cuts

December 12, 2017 • By Steve Wamhoff

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin claimed for weeks that his department would release a study showing that the $1.5 trillion tax cut moving through Congress would “pay for itself.” On Monday he released a one-page memo that asserts, without evidence, that  economic growth resulting from President Trump’s policies would raise enough revenue to more than offset the costs of the tax cuts.

“Compromises” Under Discussion for the State and Local Tax Deduction Do Not Fix Flawed Tax Bills

December 10, 2017 • By Meg Wiehe, Steve Wamhoff

Republicans in Congress are reported to be considering two versions of a change they claim would “improve” the current bills by making them more generous to residents of higher-taxed states. As illustrated by these estimates, the reality is that these proposals would make little difference on those states and taxpayers hit hardest.