Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP)

ITEP's Research Priorities

Montana Budget & Policy Center: Tax Policy Highs and Lows from the 2025 Montana Legislature

June 11, 2025

The 2025 Legislature made a number of changes to Montana’s tax system, including an expensive cut to the income tax and restructuring of the property tax system.

Axios: Behind the Curtain: A Decades-in-the-Making Immigration War

June 11, 2025

President Trump undoubtedly stands on strong political ground, backed by most Americans, in cases where he's deporting convicted criminals. Now comes a new test, literally 40 years in the making: How comfortable are Americans with deporting millions of immigrants who paid taxes, built families and committed no crimes after coming here illegally?

Center for American Progress: Governors Should Fight for an Economic Agenda To Improve the Lives of Working-Class Residents

June 10, 2025

Governors are uniquely able to advance an economic agenda that reflects the needs of the working class, giving them the opportunity to illustrate a contrast with the Trump administration, whose policies favor billionaires at the expense of working people.

Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy: What You Need to Know About the National Private School Voucher Proposal in the U.S. House Budget Bill

June 10, 2025

Normally, when individuals sell stock, they must pay capital gains taxes on any profit they’ve made. But donors who gift their stock to an SGO wouldn’t have to pay capital gains taxes on any increase in the stock’s value, and they would still get the generous dollar-for-dollar tax credit, yielding a personal profit for themselves.

Georgia Budget and Policy Institute: The House-Passed Reconciliation Bill Would Significantly Increase National Debt, Primarily Benefitting Top Earners, While Cutting Health Care and Food Assistance

June 10, 2025

Overall, the budget reconciliation legislation would reduce federal taxes for Georgians by $16.6 billion annually. However, 69% of these savings ($11.5 billion) are directed to the highest-earning 20% of Georgia households, or those making over $153,100 per year.

CBS News: Millions of U.S. Kids Could Lose the Child Tax Credit under GOP Budget Bill, Experts Say

June 9, 2025

A Republican-backed budget package includes a new restriction for the federal Child Tax Credit that could strip the benefit from millions of children who are U.S. citizens or legal residents, according to policy experts.

Newsweek: Child Tax Credit Could Be Stripped from Millions of Children

June 9, 2025

Anew budget proposal that would impose new restrictions on the federal Child Tax Credit could eliminate the benefit for millions of U.S. citizens or legally resident children, policy experts have said.

CNN: Trump’s Big Bill Includes an ‘Unprecedented’ Tax Credit for a National School Voucher Program. Here’s How It Would Work.

June 6, 2025

Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, says the program is generous – to say the least. “A dollar-for-dollar charitable donation tax credit is unprecedented at the federal level,” he told CNN in an email.

Injustice Watch: Property-Tax Foreclosure Reform Gets Put Off by Illinois Legislators

June 6, 2025

“It boggles the mind that the state legislature would just keep kicking the can down the road, and you have a crisis on your hands,” said Rita Jefferson, an analyst with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonprofit that advocates for more equitable tax policies.

Congressional Budget Office: Effects of the Surge in Immigration on State and Local Budgets in 2023

June 6, 2025

In this report, the Congressional Budget Office estimates how the surge in immigration that began in 2021 affected state and local budgets in 2023.

The American Prospect: Trump’s Beautiful Bill Will Kick 11 Million People Off Their Health Insurance

June 5, 2025

The Congressional Budget Office published its latest estimate of the Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act on Wednesday. The results are gruesome.

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State Rundown 6/5: States Wrap Sessions, Some Prepare for Fiscal Uncertainty

June 5, 2025 • By ITEP Staff

State Rundown 6/5: States Wrap Sessions, Some Prepare for Fiscal Uncertainty

States use the final hours of their legislative sessions to address deficits and preserve revenue in preparation for the times ahead.

U.S. News & World Report: Ignore the Populist Rhetoric. The GOP Tax Bill Exposes their True Colors

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.

Fox News: Educational Choice for Children Act: A Tax Break for the Rich, Not a Lifeline for Students

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.

Roosevelt Institute: It’s Time to End Joint Tax Filing

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.

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Trump’s Last Tax Cuts Failed Americans Like Me. Let’s Not Repeat the Mistake.

June 5, 2025 • By Brakeyshia Samms

Trump’s Last Tax Cuts Failed Americans Like Me. Let’s Not Repeat the Mistake.

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.

Kentucky Center for Economic Policy: Program Cuts and Tariff Costs Will Leave Many Kentucky Families Worse Off, Even with Modest Tax Cuts

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.

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Sweeping Federal Tax and Spending Changes Threaten Local Governments

June 3, 2025 • By Kamolika Das

Sweeping Federal Tax and Spending Changes Threaten Local Governments

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.

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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

Five Issues for States to Watch in the Federal Tax Debate

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.

Missouri Independent: Proposed Federal Tax Changes could Mean $170M or More Cut to Missouri State Revenues

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.

Kansas City Star: Tell Kansas’ Senators Not to Give Ultra-Wealthy a ‘Big Beautiful’ Tax Loophole | Opinion

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.

Migration Policy Institute: Seeking to Ramp Up Deportations, the Trump Administration Quietly Expands a Vast Web of Data

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.

Vanity Fair: The GOP’s Big, Beautiful Bind

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.”

Brookings: The Educational Choice for Children Act Opens the Door to Waste, Fraud, and Abuse

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.)

Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies: Centering Black Households in the 2025 Tax Debate

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.