Tax Justice Digest: Undocumented Immigrants Pay Taxes and Fact-Checking President Trump

March 2, 2017

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. 

Undocumented Immigrants’ Tax Contributions
ITEP today released updated numbers on undocumented immigrants’ tax contributions. Collectively, they contribute $11.74 billion in state and local taxes and pay an average effective state tax rate of 8.6 percent. This report is particularly important in the context of national policy discussion about a border wall and mass deportation.
Read the report

In a blog post about the report and current political climate, Meg Wiehe, ITEP director of programs, notes that undocumented immigrants have become an easy scapegoat for our rigged economic system, writing, “Erroneously blaming undocumented immigrants for stagnating wages and the growing chasm between the rich and poor detracts from the real issue: too many of our elected officials are responsible for tax and other public policies that favor special interests and corporations.”
Read Meg’s blog

A Tempered Delivery Doesn’t Make a Statement True
On Tuesday evening during his first address to Congress, President Trump promised to cut taxes for corporations and the middle class. For the latter to be true, the president would have to push a proposal that radically departs from his campaign trail tax plan, which would bestow 58 percent of its benefit on the richest 5 percent of taxpayers. While the speech was light on details, ITEP analyst Richard Phillips fact-checked this and three other statements on taxes.
Read more

What to Do When Continual Budget Shortfalls Become Exasperating?
Before the 2010 Tea Party wave, Kansas was governed by a bipartisan coalition of moderates. That wave ushered in Gov. Brownback and a series of supply-side tax cuts that devastated state revenues and gave the state the dubious distinction of poster child for failed trickle-down economic theories. Now, the bipartisan coalition of moderates is back and emboldened, and they mean business.
Read about the Kansas legislature’s recent vote to rescind tax cuts

What Is Combined Reporting and Why Should You Care?
Combined reporting requires large companies operating in multiple states to add together all the profits of their various branches and subsidiaries into one single report and then follow existing rules for apportioning those profits to states in which they operate. This is tax speak for making it more difficult for corporations to hide profits and dodge taxes.
Read a brief blog or
Read the full report 

What to Watch in the States: State-Federal Relationship Shifting
State lawmakers will be making policy decisions amid a great deal of uncertainty about the future of federal tax and funding policies that are crucial to the states. How those federal debates shake out and how states prepare for and react to them will have lasting consequences for families and businesses in every state, and for the very nature of federalism in the United States.
Read more

If you have any feedback on the Digest or tax stories you’re watching that we should check out too please email me [email protected]

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