Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

ITEP's Research Priorities

The Guardian: Charles Koch’s Network Launches $20m Campaing Backing Trump Tax Breaks

January 27, 2025

Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the flagship political arm of the rightwing network formed by the fossil fuels billionaire Charles Koch and his late brother David, is launching a multimillion-dollar campaign backing Donald Trump’s plans to extend tax cuts and roll back federal regulations.

Salon: The High Opportunity Cost of Trump’s Economy

January 27, 2025

President Donald Trump is returning to the White House with the strongest economy in the world; unemployment is low, inflation continues to trend downward and growth is accelerating. Yet, Trump is about to unravel our post-COVID recovery with an attempt to enact a toxic economic agenda of tariffs, mass deportations and tax cuts for the mega-rich. All paid for with cuts to programs that benefit working class Americans.

Public Citizen: DOGE Delusions: A Real-World Plan To Crack Down on Corporate Handouts, Tax the Rich and Invest for the Future

January 23, 2025

On November 12, 2024, President-elect Donald Trump announced that billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would co-chair a new entity, called the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE). “Together,” Trump asserted, “these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure federal Agencies – Essential to the ’Save America’ Movement. … It will become, potentially, the ’Manhattan project’ of our time.”

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State Rundown 1/22: Tax Policy, Affordability, and Where It Misses the Mark

January 22, 2025 • By ITEP Staff

As state legislative sessions ramp up many lawmakers discuss their prioritization of affordability of necessities like food and housing as they craft their legislative agendas. Arkansas, Mississippi and Utah are looking to reduce or fully exempt groceries from their state sales taxes. Meanwhile, multiple proposals to reduce property taxes are making their way around state […]

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State Rundown 1/15: Tax Debates Heat Up Despite Winter Weather

January 15, 2025 • By ITEP Staff

While frigid temperatures expected across a large swath of the country, major tax proposals are heating up in the states. Governors are giving their State of the State addresses and state lawmakers have begun to convene for 2025. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced plans to expand the state’s Child Tax Credit earlier this year and has since announced nearly $1 billion in income tax cuts. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore unveiled a new tax proposal aimed at helping close the state’s looming revenue shortfall. The plan would increase taxes on the wealthy and cut taxes for many low- and middle-income…

MSNBC: Trump Inverts Reality with His Claims about Migrants Hurting Social Security

January 15, 2025

A key plank of President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign tirades against undocumented immigrants was that they drain vital social services that are facing insolvency threats. “Unlike the Democrats, who are KILLING SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE by allowing the INVASION OF THE MIGRANTS, I will NOT, under any circumstance, allow either of these two precious GEMS to be even touched under a Trump Administration,” he posted on Truth Social in one characteristic broadside last year.

New York Times: How Unauthorized Immigrants Help Finance Social Security Benefits

January 13, 2025

The Social Security Administration receives billions in free money each year from an unexpected source: undocumented immigrants.

Crain’s Chicago Business: Cook County’s Property System is Complex and Burdensome. Here’s How It Can Be Fixed.

December 17, 2024

Discontent about property tax increases persists not only among Chicagoans, but also among Cook County residents and property owners nationwide. Relief is what everyone wants, as seen by the rate at which municipalities put property tax-related referendums and legislation on the ballots in 2024, says Rita Jefferson, a policy analyst for the Institute of Taxation & Economic Policy, or ITEP. 

Foreign Policy: What Trump’s Mass Deportations Would Mean for the U.S. Economy.

November 26, 2024

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to conduct “the largest deportation effort in American history,” no matter the price tag—but the economic costs of such a campaign may be bigger than he has bargained for. 

Capital & Main: Why Mass Deportations Would Cripple California’s Economy

November 22, 2024

Trump has, after all, already made full-throated declarations that his administration will conduct the largest deportation of undocumented residents in U.S. history. That should resonate in a place like California, with its estimated 1.8 million undocumented immigrants — and it certainly would shake up a state agriculture industry in which nearly half of all workers are undocumented.

Public News Service: Colorado Working Families Would Pay More Under Trump Tax Proposals

November 21, 2024

President-elect Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress have promised to pass a new tax bill, and a new report breaks down the expected winners and losers. Joe Hughes, senior policy analyst with the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, says based on Trump's campaign proposals, the top one percent - those making more than $900,000 a year - will see their tax bill go down by more than $36,000, on average.

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State Tax Policy Should Adopt the Principles of ‘Black Women Best’

November 20, 2024 • By Brakeyshia Samms

Focusing policy analysis on Black women illustrates how Black women have long shouldered the shortcomings of the economy and clearly points to solutions that work for all. Black women are at their best when they are financially secure, healthy, and free – and our economy is at its best when all people can thrive and benefit.

USA Today: Trump Deportation Plan Could Target as Many as 1.1 Million People in Florida

November 20, 2024

With President-elect Donald Trump poised to declare a national emergency to clear the way for the mass deportation of undocumented migrants, Florida may face wholesale disruption in the coming year. Immigration experts say about 5% of Florida’s population – 1.1 million residents – are living here without legal permission. How far Trump goes will be critical in gauging deportation’s impact on communities, families, workplaces and the Florida economy.

Rolling Stone: Team Trump Wants the Poor to Suffer to Fund His Tax Cuts for The Rich

November 20, 2024

The proposals under discussion would likely increase inequality and hardship in America at a time when nearly 4 in 10 households are struggling to pay their bills. In this case, the cuts to America’s meager safety net would be used to finance an unusually direct transfer of wealth upward. A review of Trump’s 2024 campaign tax promises by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found his proposals, taken together, “would, on average, lead to a tax cut for the richest 5 percent of Americans and a tax increase for all other income groups.”

Salon: “No Mistake on Who They’re Serving”: Republicans Eye Medicaid, SNAP Cuts to Pay for Trump Tax Plan.

November 19, 2024

President-elect Donald Trump and his advisers are eyeing major cuts to federal safety net programs like Medicaid and food stamps to balance the cost of their massive tax agenda, The Washington Post reported Monday.

Associated Press: Sweeping Tax Overhaul in Louisiana Hits Snag in Sales Tax Expansion

November 15, 2024

Louisiana lawmakers on Thursday postponed a vote on a key bill in Gov. Jeff Landry’s sweeping and complex tax reform package.

Mansion Global: Trump Said He’s Bringing SALT Back. Tax Experts Say It’s Not so Easy.

November 14, 2024

“Most of the changes in the 2017 tax law were things that benefit the rich,” said Steve Wamhoff with the Institute on Tax and Economic Policy. “The cap on SALT deductions was one of the few things that limited tax breaks for the rich. That’s not to say that everyone affected by the SALT cap is rich, but the vast majority of impact is going to be with the richest 1%.”

New Yorker: Republican Victory and the Ambience of Information

November 14, 2024

Why didn’t the speeches register? Why did people persist in thinking that Harris was short on policy; that Trump’s programs would boost the American economy, despite a widely broadcast consensus from sixteen Nobel Prize-winning economists to the contrary; or that he would lower taxes for working people, though the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy calculated that he would increase them? Even many of Trump’s critics think his first term marked a high point for border patrol, though more unauthorized migrants have been forced to leave under Biden. (Why was Biden’s Presidency widely dismissed as desultory, when, in fact, as my colleague Nicholas Lemann recently put it,…

New Jersey Policy Perspective: Fair and Square: Changing New Jersey’s Tax Code to Promote Equity and Fiscal Responsibility

November 14, 2024

Reforming New Jersey's tax system would reduce income inequality and provide revenues needed for public investments to make the state more affordable. 

The Guardian: How a Republican Trifecta Makes Way for Trump’s Rightwing Agenda

November 14, 2024

With the confirmation that Republicans have won a majority in the House of Representatives, Donald Trump and his party will now have a governing trifecta in Washington come January, giving the new president a powerful perch to enact his rightwing agenda.

NerdWallet: What to Know About Harris and Trump’s Tariff Campaign Promises

November 5, 2024

It’s election week, and Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are making their last-ditch efforts to recruit voters. At the top of many Americans’ minds, of course, is the economy.

The Independent: Elon Musk Wants to Gut the Federal Government Under Trump. What Could That Look Like?

November 5, 2024

The wealthiest man on the planet is pumping tens of millions of dollars into Donald Trump’s campaign. He owns an influential social media company where he embraces right-wing influencers and conspiracy theories now dominating the platform. He has business interests with China and Russia’s Vladimir Putin’s regime while his companies receive billions of dollars in US government contracts.

New York Times: Trump’s Closing Argument: Lies, Distortions and Inaccuracies

November 4, 2024

Former President Donald J. Trump, in the closing days of the 2024 election, continues to be a font of exaggerations, misleading claims and outright lies.

Economic Security Project: The Equity & Prosperity Agenda: A Tax Plan to Promote a Fair, Inclusive, and Competitive Economy

October 31, 2024

The expiration of the Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) in 2025 is a critical opportunity to set economic policy for the next decade. The TCJA has been an abject failure for American families. Every year since it passed in 2017, it has diverted taxpayer money to exorbitant tax breaks for the ultrawealthy and powerful corporations while everyday Americans have struggled to make ends meet. The 2025 tax fight is our opportunity to promote competition and curb corporate concentration, lower costs for working families, raise the revenue we need to invest in core priorities and promote a democratized, multiracial economy.

Business Insider: What a Trump or Harris Presidency Would Mean for Your Tax Bill

October 31, 2024

In the fourth installment of BI's five-part series in the final stretch before the election, Business Insider is looking at the ways each candidate's policies could affect how much you pay in taxes. (Read part one about investments, part two about costs, and part three about housing.)