Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP)

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75 posts
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Big Tech Is Raking in Enormous Tax Breaks for AI Development

• By Matthew Gardner

OBBBA’s expensing provision is becoming especially lucrative for the companies building out AI infrastructure right now. There is no evidence whatsoever that tax breaks are necessary to encourage their construction.

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New Census Data Show Importance of Refundable Tax Credits and Need for Improvements

• By Joe Hughes

The Child Tax Credit actually moved fewer children out of poverty in 2025 than it did in 2024 prior to Congress passing the so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (OBBBA).

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The Biggest Winners from Trump’s Tariff Refunds are Big Corporations

• By Matthew Gardner

The Trump administration has been forced to pay out over $100 billion from illegal tariffs, and the biggest winners from these tariff refunds have been big corporations.

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The Trump Administration Slashed Taxes for H&R Block and Raised Costs for Tax Filers

• By Joe Hughes

Tax-prep giant H&R Block paid no federal taxes on its U.S. income in 2025. It also made a public disclosure, required by the European Union, characterizing one-third of its global profits as earned in Ireland, a low-tax country where the company offers no tax services and has only 15 employees.

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Five Things to Know About the Trump Administration’s New Effort to Deny Tax Credits to Lawfully Present Immigrants

• By Carl Davis

Today the Trump administration proposed new regulations seeking to drastically reduce the tax credits that certain immigrant tax filers can claim. The affected credits include the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Additional Child Tax Credit, American Opportunity Tax Credit, and the Adoption Tax Credit. 

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Trump Weighs Another Giveaway to the Wealthy With Capital Gains Indexing Ahead of Midterms

• By Jon Whiten

Trump is once again weighing a proposal to index capital gains taxes to inflation as part of a set of policy promises ahead of the midterm elections. It would amount to a massive new tax break for wealthy investors.

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Trump Says Exxon and Chevron Are Ripping Off Americans, But His Own Policies Are to Blame

• By Matthew Gardner

President Trump lashed out at ExxonMobil and Chevron for “making too much money." These companies are reporting enormous profits right now, partly the result of Trump’s war in Iran but also due to the corporate tax policies he's passed during his time in office.

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Trump Administration Says Shining Light on Corporate Tax Avoidance is ‘Very Dangerous’

• By Matthew Gardner

Administration officials appear far more concerned about the public knowing too much about how U.S. corporations shift their income into offshore tax havens.

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Amidst Soaring Tech Earnings, Meta and Qualcomm Disclose a $13.7 Billion Tax Gift from Trump Administration

• By Matthew Gardner

Both companies acknowledge that they will save billions because of the Trump administration's weakening of the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax (CAMT). Meta and Qualcomm are just two of the corporations that will benefit from this corporate tax cut provided unilaterally by the Trump's Treasury Department.

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Despite Any Refunds, You’re Probably Paying More Taxes Under Trump While Richest Pay Less

• By Steve Wamhoff

For a large majority of Americans, the tax increase resulting from Trump’s tariffs, along with the ending of the health care tax credits, more than offsets any tax cuts provided by OBBBA. The exception is the richest 5 percent of Americans, for whom the net result is a tax cut on average.

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Cheniere Energy Gets $380 Million Gift from Trump’s Treasury Department

• By Matthew Gardner

Cheniere Energy's latest annual financial report shows the company reaped a cool $380 million in tax cuts from a single regulatory change made by the Trump administration last fall.

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Nvidia’s Tax Bill Shows It’s Not Just Zero-Tax Corporations That Hurt Our Budget Deficit the Most

• By Matthew Gardner

Semiconductor giant Nvidia reported avoiding $6.8 billion in federal income taxes last year. The company did this in a year when it reported greater earnings growth than almost any corporation in history, with U.S. pretax income coming in at an astonishing $123 billion.

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Despite a Supreme Court Victory for Middle-Class Americans, Trump’s Disastrous Tariff Policies Are Not Over

• By Steve Wamhoff

Today the Supreme Court made the right decision in striking down most of the tariffs President Trump has put into motion during his second term.

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Trump Administration Provides Biggest Illegal Tax Cuts Yet for Billion-Dollar Corporations

• By Amy Hanauer

The Treasury Department is unilaterally cutting corporate taxes with regulations that ignore the statute they claim to implement, disregarding the separation of powers between the branches of government that has defined how America works for more than two centuries.

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2025: The Year in Tax Policy

• By ITEP Staff

From Congressional discussions over the so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" to debates on property taxes, ITEP kept busy this year analyzing tax proposals and showing Americans across the country how tax decisions affect them.

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The Trump Megabill Hands the Rich a Gift — and Sends the Bill to Young Americans

• By Angie Sumo

Trump's megabill directs most benefits to the wealthy, while leaving younger generations with higher taxes, more debt, and fewer opportunities. For Millennials and Gen Z, it means reduced public investment and an economy less likely to work in their favor.

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Trump Administration’s English-Only IRS Would Undermine Public Trust and Boost Budget Deficits

• By Matthew Gardner

The Trump administration’s push to make English the official U.S. language threatens decades of progress in taxpayer services for non-English speakers, risking cuts to IRS multilingual support, harder tax filing, lower compliance, and an undermined agency mission.

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How Much Would Every Family in Every State Get if the Megabill’s Tax Cuts Given to the Rich Had Instead Been Evenly Divided?

• 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.

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GOP Megabill Breaks America’s Promise to Future Generations

• By Amy Hanauer

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.

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Top 1% to Receive $1 Trillion Tax Cut from Trump Megabill Over the Next Decade

• 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.

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The SALT Caucus, Fortunately, Comes Up Short

• By Michael Ettlinger

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…

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Megabill Takes Cap Off Unprecedented Private School Voucher Tax Credit, Potentially Raising Cost by Tens of Billions Relative to Earlier Version

• 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.

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Trump Megabill Will Give $117 Billion in Tax Cuts to the Top 1% in 2026. How Much In Your State?

• By Michael Ettlinger

The predominant feature of the tax and spending bill working its way through Congress is a massive tax cut for the richest 1 percent — a $114 billion benefit to the wealthiest people in the country in 2026 alone.

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How Much Do the Top 1% in Each State Get from the Trump Megabill?

• By Carl Davis

The Senate tax bill under debate right now would bring very large tax cuts to very high-income people. In total, the richest 1 percent would receive $114 billion in tax cuts next year alone. That would amount to nearly $61,000 for each of these affluent households.

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Musk-Trump Feud Shows Need to Tax the Rich

• By Amy Hanauer

Our tax policies enable people like Elon Musk and Donald Trump to accumulate more wealth than anyone could ever use in a lifetime. They then use it to steer elections and shape public policy to further enrich themselves and others like them. We should defeat the enormously destructive tax bill in Congress and instead craft tax policy that taxes the rich, makes our democracy more fair, and returns resources to the rest of the country.