• blog   May 11, 2023

    States are Talking About the Wrong Kind of Property Tax Cuts

    Concerns over property tax affordability have been at the forefront this year as housing prices have climbed and property tax bills have often increased along with them. As lawmakers mull a range of property tax cuts, circuit breakers are the best possible approach—and these policies are receiving far too little attention in the states.

  • report   May 11, 2023

    Preventing an Overload: How Property Tax Circuit Breakers Promote Housing Affordability

    Circuit breaker credits are the most effective tool available to promote property tax affordability. These policies prevent a property tax “overload” by crediting back property taxes that go beyond a certain share of income. Circuit breakers intervene to ensure that property taxes do not swallow up an unreasonable portion of qualifying households’ budgets.

  • blog   May 9, 2023

    Congress Should Raise Taxes on the Rich, But That’s a Totally Separate Issue from the Debt Ceiling

    Congress absolutely should raise taxes on the rich and on corporations to generate revenue and improve the fairness of our tax code. President Biden has several proposals to do exactly that. But this is an entirely separate question from whether we should raise the debt ceiling to honor the debts the nation has already incurred and avoid an economic apocalypse.

  • report   May 4, 2023

    Extending Temporary Provisions of the 2017 Trump Tax Law: National and State-by-State Estimates

    The push by Congressional Republicans to make the provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent would cost nearly $300 billion in the first year and deliver the bulk of the tax benefits to the wealthiest Americans.

  • blog   April 27, 2023

    Kansas Avoids Flat Tax Proposal: Narrow Victory a Cautionary Tale for Other States

    Kansas lawmakers failed to override Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of a damaging flat tax package. In doing so, the state narrowly avoided traveling again down the same disastrous yet well-worn path of deep income tax cuts. States across the country can learn from Kansas’s experience by rethinking tax policy decisions and broader statewide priorities.

  • map   April 19, 2023

    How is Adult-Use Cannabis Taxed by Your Local Government?

    Twenty states have legalized the sale of cannabis for general adult use. Cannabis taxes vary considerably depending on local authority. Some states allow local governments to levy standalone excise taxes applying narrowly to cannabis purchases. Most local excise taxes on cannabis are levied in states that do not permit local governments to levy general sales taxes.

  • map   April 19, 2023

    How is Adult-Use Cannabis Taxed in Your State?

    Twenty states have legalized cannabis sales for general adult use. Every state allowing legal sales applies a cannabis tax based on the product’s quantity, its price, or both. ITEP research indicates that taxes based on quantity will be more sustainable over time because prices are widely expected to fall as the cannabis industry matures.

  • blog   April 18, 2023

    Why is My Refund So Much Smaller This Year? Only the Good (Tax Credits) Die Young.

    This year millions of American families are finding that their refunds are much smaller than last year—or that they even owe taxes back to the government—because of the expiration of the expanded Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit that were in effect in 2021. The lapse of the expanded credits affects a majority of the middle class, but lower-income households are particularly likely to feel the sting.

  • blog   April 12, 2023

    Deep Public Investment Changes Lives, Yet Too Many States Continue to Seek Tax Cuts

    When state budgets are strong, lawmakers should put those revenues toward building a stronger and more inclusive society for the long haul. Yet, many state lawmakers have made clear that their top priority is repeatedly cutting taxes for the wealthy.

  • blog   April 12, 2023

    8 Things to Know About State Taxes

    As Tax Day approaches, it’s worth thinking about not only the taxes that we individually pay but the overall condition of our tax code as well. State tax codes, while…
  • map   April 6, 2023

    What Income Tax Subsidies Do States Offer to Seniors?

    Every state with a personal income tax offers tax subsidies for seniors that are unavailable to younger taxpayers. The best academic research suggests that the median state asks senior citizens…
  • brief   March 30, 2023

    How Local Governments Raise Revenue—and What it Means for Tax Equity

    Most local tax systems are falling short of their potential. Well-structured local tax policies support communities by facilitating important investments and advancing fairness, but the tax revenue sources most utilized by local governments tend to disproportionately weigh on households with fewer resources. Learning from these realities can inform the path to improved tax policies and stronger communities.

  • blog   March 23, 2023

    State Rundown 3/23: A Spring Awakening of Tax Proposals

    As nature bursts into life and color with the arrival of spring, state tax proposals are doing the same as the legislative seeds planted by lawmakers earlier this year start to grow, blossom, and in some cases rot. However, some governors are not entirely happy with what state lawmakers have produced.

  • blog   March 23, 2023

    States Prioritize Old Over Young in Push for Larger Senior Tax Subsidies

    Under a well-designed income tax based on ability to pay, it is simply not necessary to offer special tax subsidies to older adults but not younger families. At the end of the day, your income tax bill should depend on what you can afford to pay, not the year you were born. It’s really as simple as that.

  • report   March 23, 2023

    State Income Tax Subsidies for Seniors

    State governments provide a wide array of tax subsidies to their older residents. But too many of these carveouts focus on predominately wealthy and white seniors, all while the cost climbs.

  • report   March 10, 2023

    Revenue-Raising Proposals in President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Plan

    President Biden’s latest budget proposal includes trillions of dollars of new revenue that would be paid by the richest Americans, both directly through increases in personal income, Medicare and estate taxes, and indirectly through increases in corporate income taxes.

  • blog   March 8, 2023

    President’s Budget Would Strengthen Medicare Taxes Paid by the Wealthy

    As part of his new budget plan, President Biden is asking the richest Americans to pay a little bit more to strengthen Medicare. The proposal includes raising taxes related to Medicare very slightly for the highest earners and closing a loophole that some wealthy individuals use to avoid Medicare taxes altogether.

  • map   March 7, 2023

    Which States Have Tax Cut Triggers or Phase-ins?

    In recent years, lawmakers have been quick to push for phased-in tax cuts or cuts attached to trigger mechanisms. These policy tools push the implementation of tax cuts outside of the current budget window with a predetermined phase-in schedule or a mathematical formula tied to state revenue trends.

  • brief   March 3, 2023

    Tax Avoidance Continues to Fuel School Privatization Efforts

    Wealthy families are overwhelmingly the ones using school voucher tax credits to opt out of paying for public education and other public services and to redirect their tax dollars to private and religious institutions instead. Most of these credits are being claimed by families with incomes over $200,000.

  • ITEP Work in Action   February 23, 2023

    Policy Matters Ohio: Speaker’s #1 priority – Tax cut for the rich

    One of Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens’ top-priority bills, House Bill 1, is a massive giveaway to the rich, and the first of two such proposals by leading Republicans in…
  • blog   February 13, 2023

    Biden Says the Stock Buyback Tax Should Be Higher. Here are Three Reasons Why He’s Right.

    A higher tax on stock buybacks would reduce the tax disparity between dividends and buybacks, raise more revenue for productive public investments, and recoup some of Trump’s corporate tax cuts that went to wealthy shareholders.

  • brief   February 13, 2023

    Higher Stock Buyback Tax Would Raise Billions by Tightening Loophole for the Wealthy

    A higher excise tax rate on buybacks is completely reasonable. Quadrupling the rate, as the President proposes, would raise more revenue and cut into the tax advantage buybacks have over dividends. When a company uses their cash holdings to repurchase their own stock, it is an admission that they have few productive investment opportunities. The public does have productive uses for the tax revenue like infrastructure and schools that create value for the entire economy.

  • blog   February 1, 2023

    By Fighting Audit Bias, Funding for Tax Enforcement Can Advance Racial Equity

    Black households are between 2.9 and 4.7 times more likely to be audited by the Internal Revenue Service than non-Black households. This disparity is driven in part but not wholly by a lack of resources at the IRS, which itself is driven by years of budget cuts the agency has faced.

  • blog   January 18, 2023

    State Lawmakers Should Break the 2023 Tax Cut Fever Before It’s Too Late

    Despite mixed economic signals for 2023, including a possible recession, many state lawmakers plan to use temporary budget surpluses to forge ahead with permanent, regressive tax cuts that would disproportionately benefit the wealthy at the expense of low- and middle-income households. These cuts would put state finances in a precarious position and further erode public investments in education, transportation and health, all of which are crucial for creating inclusive, vibrant communities where everyone, not just the rich, can achieve economic security and thrive. In the event of an economic downturn, these results would be accelerated and amplified.

  • blog   January 18, 2023

    Momentum Behind State Tax Credits for Workers and Families Continues in 2023

    Refundable tax credits are an important tool for improving family economic security and advancing racial equity, and there is incredible momentum heading into 2023 to boost two key state credits: the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit.