2025 tax debate
CNBC: How Senate GOP ‘No Tax on Tips’ Proposal Differs From House Republican Plan
June 18, 2025 • By Matthew Gardner
However, the Senate proposal is different from the House version in two key ways, Matt Gardner, senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, wrote in an e-mail. Read more.
House Bill’s Deduction for Car Loan Interest Would Not Offset Tariff-Related Auto Price Increases for Most Buyers
June 12, 2025 • By Carl Davis, Sarah Austin
The auto loan interest deduction that recently passed the House is designed, at least in part, to mitigate the impact of tariff-induced price increases on vehicles assembled in America. But the deduction is incapable of offsetting even small-scale price increases, especially for working-class families and others with moderate incomes.
The ‘Big, Beautiful’ Bill Creates a $5 Billion Tax Shelter for Private School Donors
June 9, 2025 • By Amy Hanauer
On May 22, Congress passed the House reconciliation bill or “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” by a one-vote margin. The bill’s dozens of destructive tax provisions would supercharge inequality and force devastating cuts to health and food aid that have been bedrocks of the American safety net since the 1960s.
Musk-Trump Feud Shows Need to Tax the Rich
June 6, 2025 • By Amy Hanauer
Our tax policies enable people like Elon Musk and Donald Trump to accumulate more wealth than anyone could ever use in a lifetime. They then use it to steer elections and shape public policy to further enrich themselves and others like them. We should defeat the enormously destructive tax bill in Congress and instead craft tax policy that taxes the rich, makes our democracy more fair, and returns resources to the rest of the country.
Trump’s Last Tax Cuts Failed Americans Like Me. Let’s Not Repeat the Mistake.
June 5, 2025 • By Brakeyshia Samms
Now as more GOP tax cuts for the rich move through Congress, history is poised to repeat itself. The bill would disproportionately benefit the well-off — and harm the financial well-being of millions of working Americans, including Black women like me.
Sweeping Federal Tax and Spending Changes Threaten Local Governments
June 3, 2025 • By Kamolika Das
Given this environment, local leaders must do what they can to preserve and strengthen progressive revenue tools, advocate for expanded local taxing authorities and flexibility, and push their state leaders to decouple from harmful federal tax changes.
Five Issues for States to Watch in the Federal Tax Debate
June 3, 2025 • By Dylan Grundman O'Neill, Kamolika Das, Marco Guzman, Miles Trinidad, Neva Butkus
This post covers five particularly notable provisions for states: increasing deductions for state and local taxes (SALT) paid, allowing more generous tax write-offs for businesses, offering new avenues for capital gains tax avoidance to people contributing to private school voucher funds, carving tips and overtime out of the tax base, and re-upping Opportunity Zone tax breaks for wealthy investors.
House Bill’s $164 Billion Giveaway to Multinational Corporations Puts America Last
May 27, 2025 • By Sarah Austin
The House of Representatives’ recently passed tax bill changes course on taxing multinational corporations engaged in shifting U.S. profits overseas, offering massive tax giveaways that weaken American revenues and risk sending more American corporate investment offshore.
Analysis of Tax Provisions in the House Reconciliation Bill: National and State Level Estimates
May 22, 2025 • By Carl Davis, Jessica Vela, Joe Hughes, Steve Wamhoff
The poorest fifth of Americans would receive 1 percent of the House reconciliation bill's net tax cuts in 2026 while the richest fifth of Americans would receive two-thirds of the tax cuts. The richest 5 percent alone would receive a little less than half of the net tax cuts that year.
The House Tax Plan, By the Numbers
May 16, 2025 • By Carl Davis
The House of Representatives unveiled a sprawling piece of tax legislation earlier this week that would extend temporary tax changes enacted in 2017 and layer various kinds of tax cuts and increases on top. The JCT analysis makes clear that the House tax plan would be regressive, meaning it would offer larger tax cuts as a share of income to high-income taxpayers than to either middle-class or working-class families. It also makes clear that most of the tax cuts would go to families with above-average incomes.
House Tax Bill Would Encourage Dynastic Wealth Hoarding by Further Weakening the Estate Tax
May 15, 2025 • By Jon Whiten
The sprawling tax and spending bill before the House of Representatives would cut more than $200 billion from food assistance, potentially affecting 4 million children and 7 million adults, while providing an estate tax cut costing roughly the same amount to a few thousand people who will leave behind more than $7 million to their heirs.
ITEP Statement: Partial House Tax Bill Doubles Down on Trickle Down
May 10, 2025 • By ITEP Staff
So far this costly bill appears to double down on trickle down, with huge tax cuts that will further enrich the rich and not much for the rest of us. What’s more, many of the modest improvements for lower- and middle-income families are proposed to be temporary, whereas the benefits for the wealthiest are proposed to be permanent.
Trump’s Proposed Higher Tax Rate on the Richest Taxpayers Would Affect Very Little of Their Income
May 10, 2025 • By Carl Davis, Steve Wamhoff
President Donald Trump has proposed allowing the top rate to revert from 37 percent to 39.6 percent for taxable income greater than $5 million for married couples and $2.5 million for unmarried taxpayers. But many other special breaks in the tax code would ensure that most income of very well-off people would never be subject to Trump’s 39.6 percent tax rate.
Federal Tax Debate 2025
May 2, 2025 • By .ITEP Staff
The tax cuts in the House bill mostly flow to those who have the most. Roughly 68% of the tax cuts go to the richest 20% in the U.S. Some other notable changes would support private school voucher programs, harm immigrant communities, and widen income and racial inequality.
The Impact of Trump’s Tariffs
April 23, 2025 • By ITEP Staff
The tariffs proposed by Donald Trump, which are far larger than any on the books today, would significantly raise the prices faced by American consumers across the income scale.
It’s Tax Day. You’ve Paid Your Share, but the Billionaires Haven’t.
April 15, 2025 • By Amy Hanauer
You likely had most of your federal taxes deducted from your paychecks throughout the year. This is not true, however, for mega-millionaires and billionaires, some of whom are practically running our government right now.
Senate Republicans Rig Congressional Rules to Make Their Tax Cuts Appear Cost-Free
April 4, 2025 • By Steve Wamhoff
This week, members of Congress are arguing about whether extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts would cost trillions of dollars over a decade or cost nothing.
Two Ways a 2025 Federal Tax Bill Could Worsen Income and Racial Inequality
March 26, 2025 • By Joe Hughes
Two parts of Trump’s 2017 tax law that are particularly expensive and beneficial to the richest individuals are the changes in income tax rates and brackets and the special deduction for “pass-through” business owners. Lawmakers should not extend these provisions for high-income households past the end of this year, when they are scheduled to expire.
Trump and Congress’ Tax Package Likely to Worsen Racial Inequities
January 29, 2025 • By Brakeyshia Samms
While the country transitions to a new, yet familiar, presidential administration, lawmakers must keep in mind: fighting racial injustice should still be one of the focal points of this year’s tax debates. In theory, the debate over extending much of 2017’s Trump tax law represents an opportunity to advance racial equity. In practice, the tax package is likely to do the opposite, worsening racial inequities that already exist.
Different Approaches to the Trump Tax Law’s Cap on Deductions for State and Local Taxes (SALT)
January 17, 2025 • By Steve Wamhoff
President Trump and the Republican majorities in the House and Senate may not extend the $10,000 cap on federal income tax deductions for state and local taxes (SALT), the one part of the 2017 law that significantly limits tax breaks for the rich. And, depending on which proposal they settle on, leaving out the existing cap on SALT deductions could add between $10 billion and over $100 billion each year to the total cost of their tax plan.
Congress Could — But Won’t — Pass a Tax Package That Pays for Itself
January 17, 2025 • By Joe Hughes
If Republican lawmakers were serious about deficit-neutral tax reform, they would focus on increasing taxes for the ultra-wealthy and large corporations. The absence of such proposals in their plan reveals their true priority: delivering enormous tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans while average working families receive crumbs.
Trump’s Plan to Extend His 2017 Tax Provisions: Updated National and State-by-State Estimates
January 8, 2025 • By Steve Wamhoff
Trump’s plan to make most of the temporary provisions of his 2017 tax law permanent would disproportionately benefit the richest Americans. This includes all major provisions except the $10,000 cap on deductions for state and local taxes (SALT) paid.
Tax Justice in the Crosshairs
November 8, 2024 • By Amy Hanauer
Billionaires and businesses have too much power in Washington. Tax revenue is needed to pay for things we all need. If we want economic justice, racial justice and climate justice, we must have tax justice.
How Tax Decisions in 2025 Can Advance Racial Justice
October 30, 2024 • By Brakeyshia Samms, Jon Whiten
In the coming 14 months, federal lawmakers should address longstanding issues of racism in the tax code. With a presidential election this fall and many provisions of 2017’s Trump tax law expiring at the end of 2025, the debate over tax policy and economic fairness is in full swing.
Fifteen Companies Each Avoided More than $1 Billion in Taxes from a Single Trump Tax Cut
October 10, 2024 • By Joe Hughes, Spandan Marasini
The deduction for Foreign-Derived Intangible Income (FDII), one of the tax cuts included in former President Trump’s signature 2017 tax law, provides a lower effective tax rate on income earned from intangible assets, such as patents, trademarks, and other forms of intellectual property. Since the law went into effect in 2018, 15 corporations have separately reported more than $1 billion in tax benefits. Alphabet (the parent company of Google) reported the most, at more than $11 billion in tax breaks from 2018 to 2023. Other beneficiaries include large tech firms such as Meta, Microsoft, Intel, and Qualcomm.
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