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Sales Tax Holidays Miss the Mark When it Comes to Effective Sales Tax Reform
July 17, 2025 • By Miles Trinidad
Sales tax holidays are often marketed as relief for everyday families, but they do little to address the deeper inequities of regressive sales taxes. In 2025, 18 states offer these holidays at a collective cost of $1.3 billion.
States Should Move Quickly to Chart Their Own Course on SALT Deductions
July 17, 2025 • By ITEP Staff
While a federal SALT cap is hotly debated, capping deductibility at $10,000 was an unambiguously good idea at the state level. States would be smart to stick with the current cap or, better yet, go even farther and repeal SALT deductions outright. Going along with a higher federal SALT cap would double down on a regressive tax cut that will mostly benefit a small number of relatively wealthy state residents and cost states significant revenue.
Two in Three Americans Live in States with Variable-Rate Gas Taxes
July 16, 2025 • By Carl Davis
As inflation and fuel efficiency undercut traditional gas tax revenue, many states are rethinking how they fund transportation. Lawmakers across the country are beginning to modernize outdated gas tax systems to keep pace with rising infrastructure costs and changing driving habits.
Nobody should be too excited and think this means our country is headed toward lower deficits - especially when the administration recently signed one of the most expensive budget reconciliation bills in history.
Anti-Tax Revolts Backfire: What We’ve Learned from 50 Years of Property Tax Limits
July 15, 2025 • By Rita Jefferson
Across-the-board property tax cuts create less fair local tax systems in the long run. State legislators and local governments should prioritize the residents who can least afford their property taxes, not the residents and businesses who can.
How Much Would Every Family in Every State Get if the Megabill’s Tax Cuts Given to the Rich Had Instead Been Evenly Divided?
July 14, 2025 • By Michael Ettlinger
If instead of giving $117 billion to the richest 1 percent, that money had been evenly divided among all Americans, we'd each get $343 - or nearly $1,400 for a family of four.
This country’s biggest historical challenge has been delivering this progress to all Americans, but Republicans have cut it back for everyone, retreating from many 20th century achievements in ways that will slam doors, rather than opening them, for the next generation.
10 Crazy Comparisons Showing How Much Trump and Congress Just Cut Taxes for the Rich
July 10, 2025 • By ITEP Staff
$117 billion is a big number, so we thought it could use a little context.
There Were Far Cheaper and Fairer Options Than the Trump Megabill
July 8, 2025 • By ITEP Staff
Congress and the president could have spent less than half that much money on a tax bill that does more for working-class and middle-class households.
State Rundown 7/8: State Tax Cuts Continue Despite Federal Megabill Passing
July 8, 2025 • By ITEP Staff
The last states are wrapping up legislative sessions, and some are crossing the finish line with major income tax cuts.
Analysis of Tax Provisions in the Trump Megabill as Signed into Law: National and State Level Estimates
July 7, 2025 • By Steve Wamhoff, Carl Davis, Joe Hughes, Jessica Vela
President Trump has signed into law the tax and spending “megabill” that largely favors the richest taxpayers and provides working-class Americans with relatively small tax cuts that will in many cases be more than offset by Trump's tariffs.
Top 1% to Receive $1 Trillion Tax Cut from Trump Megabill Over the Next Decade
July 3, 2025 • By Carl Davis
The Trump megabill will give the top 1 percent tax cuts totaling $1.02 trillion over the next decade. For comparison, the bill’s cuts to the Medicaid health care program will total $930 billion over the same period.
The endlessly debated cap on deductions for state and local taxes (SALT) has emerged in the GOP megabill largely unscathed—despite the efforts of Republican lawmakers from “blue” states. Those lawmakers are correct that the cap reduces the bill’s tax cuts for their wealthy constituents more than for those in other states. The megabill, however, is so loaded up with other provisions that result in a dramatic tax cut for the richest 1 percent in every state.
Megabill Takes Cap Off Unprecedented Private School Voucher Tax Credit, Potentially Raising Cost by Tens of Billions Relative to Earlier Version
July 2, 2025 • By Carl Davis
It is clear that this tax credit has the potential to come with an enormous cost if private school groups are successful in convincing their supporters to participate. In these times of very high debt and deficits, this is reason for all of us to be uneasy.
As federal aid ends and economic uncertainty grows, local governments face tough budget choices. Now is the time for localities to protect vulnerable residents and build stronger, more equitable fiscal foundations.
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