June 5, 2025
The tax code is about more than depreciation, deductions, expenses and the things we focus on when we report our income to the IRS every April. It's about who gets the breaks in this country – and what that says about the priorities and values of those who write our tax laws.
June 5, 2025
A proposal quietly tucked into the House GOP’s reconciliation package, part of what’s being marketed as President Donald Trump’s "Big, Beautiful Bill," would give wealthy individuals and corporations a 100% federal tax credit for donations to private school scholarship funds.
June 5, 2025
A move to individual filing, making the tax code marriage neutral and reducing tax rates on married women who work, would not only simplify the tax code but make it fairer and increase the ability of married women to participate fully in the economy.
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.
June 4, 2025
On Thursday, May 22nd, the House of Representatives passed its major tax and spending legislation, which included last-minute revisions that made it even more favorable for the wealthy.
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.
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.
June 2, 2025
Along with hundreds of millions in potential new costs for Missouri taxpayers, an analysis of the budget bill backed by Congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump shows it would also cut state revenue as tax changes at the federal level are reflected in state returns.
June 2, 2025
How’s that for a fun new federal tax scam to help the super-wealthy? “Donate” $10 million in stock to charity, purchased for $6 million — then get all $10 million back in tax credits and avoid more than $1 million in capital gains taxes. Massive benefits for already rich individuals — you gotta love it.
May 29, 2025
For example, the U.S. tax system mostly functions on voluntary compliance. Unauthorized immigrants contributed nearly $100 billion in local, state, and federal taxes in 2022, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates. Concerns that taxpayers’ information could be shared with ICE could lead to a decline in compliance, resulting in reduced tax revenue.
May 29, 2025
While Republicans made inroads with Black and Latino voters in 2024, they could also surrender such gains. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, in extending and expanding upon Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, rate and bracket changes would “create more racial inequality in our tax system by disproportionately favoring white taxpayers at the expense of others.”
May 29, 2025
(For a detailed illustration of how this works—and some nice figures—I’d recommend this piece from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.)
May 29, 2025
The policy brief, “Centering Black Households in the 2025 Tax Debate,” analyzes how the proposed extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) would affect Black communities.
May 28, 2025
House Republicans rejected a push by some allies of President Donald Trump to include tax hikes on the rich in sweeping legislation they passed last week — a decision that could carry repercussions into next year’s elections.
May 27, 2025
Lawmakers are divided over how to deal with the state and local tax deduction or SALT, after the House passed its version of the Republican spending bill last week. The cap tends to impact Americans who live in higher-tax states particularly hard.
May 27, 2025
As the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy notes, the top 1 percent of Floridians (those with income of more than $1.1 million annually) would receive an average tax cut of $86,320 in 2026. As a share of the tax cuts, in 2026, the top 1 percent would receive 25 percent of the total tax cuts.
May 27, 2025
An analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) highlights just how lopsided the bill’s tax provisions are.
May 27, 2025
Analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows that the richest 1 percent of taxpayers in the District will get the biggest tax cut—one being paid for by slashing federal basic needs programs for tens of millions of Americans.
May 26, 2025
"Families are overloaded with their property taxes," said Brakeyshia Samms, a senior analyst for the institute. "The circuit breaker kicks in like an electrical circuit breaker and helps alleviate the pressure that these taxes put on family budgets."
May 23, 2025
"It's about three times as generous as what you're gonna get from donating to a children's hospital or a veteran's group or any other cause," says Carl Davis at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. "It really preferences voucher groups over every other kind of charity."
May 23, 2025
The 2017 tax law imposed new immigration-related restrictions on the Child Tax Credit, requiring, for the first time that children have a Social Security number (SSN). This change denied the credit to up to 1 million children.
May 23, 2025
“The result would be a profitable tax shelter for wealthy people who agree to help funnel public funds into private schools,” Amy Hanauer, the institute’s executive director, said in the webinar. “That is to say they would get more money by donating their stock than by selling it.”
May 23, 2025
Under current law, families need upward of $30,000 a year to receive the full tax credit amount, explains Joe Hughes, senior analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
May 23, 2025
“It’s not surprising that this bill was written behind closed doors and rushed through in the night before Americans had a chance to see what it contains,” Amy Hanauer, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, told the Prospect. “This bill extends enormous tax cuts to those who have the most. It will increase inequality, reduce health coverage, and take food from people’s tables, all to shower the wealthiest people in this country and foreign investors with tax breaks.”
May 23, 2025
“This bill overall would cut all sorts of benefits for all sorts of Americans who rely on them, whether it’s health care or food assistance or energy credits,” said Jon Whiten, ITEP deputy director. “It’s all being done to find enough money to jam through all of these tax cuts which disproportionately would go to the wealthiest Americans. It’s a little bit like Robin Hood in reverse here.”