Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP)

Delaware

blog  

State Rundown 4/12: Season in Transition as Some States Close, Others Open Tax Debates

• By ITEP Staff

This week in state tax news we see Louisiana‘s session getting started, budgets passed in New York and West Virginia, Kansas lawmakers taking a rest after defeating a harmful flat tax proposal, and Nebraska legislators preparing for full debate on major tax cuts. Nevada lawmakers may make tax decisions related to tampons, diapers, marijuana, and […]

blog  

Tax Justice Digest: Offshore Cash, Gas Tax and BAT

• By ITEP Staff

In the Tax Justice Digest we recap the latest reports, blog posts, and analyses from Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Here’s a rundown of what we’ve been working on lately. Corporations Offshore Cash Hoard Grows to $2.6 Trillion U.S. corporations now hold a record $2.6 trillion offshore, a […]

blog  

State Rundown 3/29: More States Looking to Raise or Protect Revenues Amid Fiscal and Federal Uncertainty

• By ITEP Staff

This week we see West Virginia, Georgia, Minnesota, and Nebraska continue to deliberate regressive tax cut proposals, as the District of Columbia considers cancelling tax cut triggers it put in place in prior years, and lawmakers in Hawaii, Washington, Kansas, and Delaware ponder raising revenues to shore up their budgets. Meanwhile, gas tax debates continue […]

blog  

State Rundown 3/15: Responses to Revenue Shortfalls Vary Widely

• By ITEP Staff

State tax debates have been very active this week. Efforts to eliminate the income tax continue in West Virginia. Policymakers in many states are responding to revenue shortfalls in very different ways: some in Iowa, Mississippi, and Nebraska seek to dig the hole even deeper with tax cuts, while the Missouri House’s response has been […]

blog  

State Rundown 3/8: Much Ado About Consumption Taxes

• By ITEP Staff

This week brings more news of states considering reforms to their consumption taxes, on everything from gasoline in South Carolina and Tennessee, to marijuana in Pennsylvania, to groceries in Idaho and Utah, and to practically everything in West Virginia. Meanwhile, the fiscal fallout of Kansas’s failed ‘tax experiment’ has new consequences as the state’s Supreme […]

blog  

State Rundown 3/1: Will Tax Cut Proposals Be “In Like a Lion, Out Like A Lamb”?

• By ITEP Staff

Tax cuts have been proposed in many states already this year, but amid so much uncertainty, it remains to be seen how successful those efforts will be. This week saw one dangerous, largely regressive tax cut proposal move in Georgia, new budget proposals in Louisiana and New Jersey, a new plan to close West Virginia‘s […]

report  

Undocumented Immigrants’ State & Local Tax Contributions

• By Lisa Christensen Gee, Meg Wiehe, Misha Hill

Public debates over federal immigration reform, specifically around undocumented immigrants, often suffer from insufficient and inaccurate information about the tax contributions of undocumented immigrants, particularly at the state level. The truth is that undocumented immigrants living in the United States paybillions of dollars each year in state and local taxes. Further, these tax contributions would increase significantly if all undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States were granted a pathway to citizenship as part…

brief  

Combined Reporting of State Corporate Income Taxes: A Primer

• By Dylan Grundman O'Neill, Meg Wiehe

Over the past several decades, state corporate income taxes have declined markedly. One of the factors contributing to this decline has been aggressive tax avoidance on the part of large, multi-state corporations, costing states billions of dollars. The most effective approach to combating corporate tax avoidance is combined reporting, a method of taxation currently employed in more than half of the states that tax corporate income. The two most recent states to enact combined reporting…

blog  

State Rundown 2/23: Regressive Tax Proposals Multiplying

• By ITEP Staff

This week saw a nearly successful attempt to right the fiscal ship in Kansas; regressive tax proposals introduced in WestVirginia, Georgia, and Missouri; ongoing gas tax fights in Indiana, South Carolina, and Tennessee; and further tax and budget wrangling in Illinois, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and beyond. — Meg Wiehe, ITEP State Policy Director, @megwiehe Both […]

blog  

State Rundown 2/15: Tax Overhauls Debated Around the Country

• By ITEP Staff

This week we are following a number of significant proposals being debated or introduced including reinstating the income tax in Alaska and eliminating the tax in West Virginia, establishing a regressive tax-cut trigger in Nebraska, restructuring the Illinois sales tax, moving New Mexico to a flat income tax and broader gross receipts tax, and updating […]

report  

State Tax & Revenue Information

• By ITEP Staff

Below is a list of notable resources for information on state taxes and revenues: Alabama Alabama Department of Revenue Alabama Department of Finance – Executive Budget Office Alabama Department of Revenue – Tax Incentives for Industry Alabama Legislative Fiscal Office Alaska Alaska Department of Revenue – Tax Division Alaska Office of Management & Budget Alaska […]

report  

Fairness Matters: A Chart Book on Who Pays State and Local Taxes

• By Carl Davis, Meg Wiehe

When states shy away from personal income taxes in favor of higher sales and excise taxes, high-income taxpayers benefit at the expense of low- and moderate-income families who often face above-average tax rates to pick up the slack. This chart book demonstrates this basic reality by examining the distribution of taxes in states that have pursued these types of policies. Given the detrimental impact that regressive tax policies have on economic opportunity, income inequality, revenue…

CNN: Trump’s Tangled Web of Businesses

January 12, 2017

“In fact, as with most businesses, most of Trump’s are registered in Delaware, known for its business-friendly courts and tax policies, but also the lack of disclosure requirements, according to Matthew Gardner, a fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.” Read more

brief  

State Estate and Inheritance Taxes

• By Dylan Grundman O'Neill, Meg Wiehe

For much of the last century, estate and inheritance taxes have played an important role in fostering strong communities by promoting equality of opportunity and helping states adequately fund public services. While many of the taxes levied by state and local governments fall most heavily on low-income families, only the very wealthy pay estate and inheritance taxes. Changes in the federal estate tax in recent years, however, caused states to reevaluate the structure of their…

report  

State Tax Subsidies for Private K-12 Education

• By Carl Davis

This report explains the workings, and problems, with state-level tax subsidies for private K-12 education. It also discusses how the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has exacerbated some of these problems by allowing taxpayers to claim federal charitable deductions even on private school contributions that were not truly charitable in nature. Finally, an appendix to this report provides additional detail on the specific K-12 private school tax subsidies made available by each state.

report  

State Tax Codes as Poverty Fighting Tools

• By Aidan Davis, Meg Wiehe

Despite this unlevel playing field states create for their poorest residents through existing policies, many state policymakers have proposed (and in some cases enacted) tax increases on the poor under the guise of "tax reform," often to finance tax cuts for their wealthiest residents and profitable corporations.

brief  

Rewarding Work Through State Earned Income Tax Credits

• By Aidan Davis, Lisa Christensen Gee, Meg Wiehe

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a policy designed to bolster the earnings of low-wage workers and offset some of the taxes they pay, providing the opportunity for struggling families to step up and out of poverty toward meaningful economic security. The federal EITC has kept millions of Americans out of poverty since its enactment in the mid-1970s. Over the past several decades, the effectiveness of the EITC has been magnified as many states…

brief  

State Treatment of Itemized Deductions

• By Dylan Grundman O'Neill, Meg Wiehe

Read this Policy Brief in PDF Form Map of State Treatment of Itemized Deductions Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia allow a group of income tax breaks known as “itemized deductions.” [1] Itemized deductions are designed to help defray a wide variety of personal expenditures that affect a taxpayer’s ability to pay taxes, including charitable […]

The Guardian: Trump and Clinton share Delaware tax ‘loophole’ address with 285,000 firms

April 25, 2016

“A report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, titled Delaware: An Onshore Tax Haven, said the state’s tax code made it “a magnet for people looking to create anonymous shell companies, which individuals and corporations can use to evade an inestimable amount in federal and foreign taxes”.” Read more

New York Times: Need to Hide Some Income? You Don’t Have to Go to Panama

April 8, 2016

“In Wyoming, Nevada and Delaware, it’s possible to create these shell corporations with virtually no questions asked,” said Matthew Gardner, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonprofit research organization in Washington.” Read more

WTSP: The “Panama Papers”: 6 key takeaways

April 6, 2016

“I’m not sure any of us are raising our eyebrows at much of anything here,” said Matt Gardner, executive director of the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, adding that Congress needs to put a stop to states such as Delaware that attract companies to incorporate there with a more favorable regime. “It shouldn’t be […]

report  

Higher Education Income Tax Deductions and Credits in the States

• By Carl Davis

Read full report in PDF Download detailed appendix with state-by-state information on deductions and credits (Excel) Every state levying a personal income tax offers at least one deduction or credit designed to defray the cost of higher education. In theory, these policies help families cope with rising tuition prices by incentivizing college savings or partially […]

The Inquirer: Undocumented, but not untaxed: How much immigrants pay

February 26, 2016

“Immigrants living illegally in the United States paid $11.6 billion in state and local taxes in 2013, including $590 million collected in New Jersey, $139 million in Pennsylvania, and $12 million in Delaware, according to a study released Wednesday by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The Washington research group said its 50-state analysis, which […]

report  

Undocumented Immigrants’ State & Local Tax Contributions (2016)

• By Lisa Christensen Gee, Meg Wiehe

This report was updated in March 2017 Read as a PDF. (Includes Full Appendix of State-by-State Data) Report Landing Page Public debates over federal immigration reform often suffer from insufficient and inaccurate information about the tax contributions of undocumented immigrants particularly at the state level. The truth is that undocumented immigrants living in the United […]

Salon: How Delaware became an American haven for “grand corruption”

February 22, 2016

“According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the cherry on this tax-reduction sundae is that Toys R US can, in turn, take the royalty payment as a deductible business expense off their state tax returns. In 1990, Geoffrey LLC received $55 million in royalty income, “and Toys R US was able to avoid […]