Blog
It’s Tax Day. You’ve Paid Your Share, but the Billionaires Haven’t.
April 15, 2025 • By Amy Hanauer
You likely had most of your federal taxes deducted from your paychecks throughout the year. This is not true, however, for mega-millionaires and billionaires, some of whom are practically running our government right now.
In last night’s address to Congress, President Trump spent more time insulting Americans, lying, and bragging than he did talking about taxes. But regardless of what President Trump and Elon Musk talk about most loudly and angrily, there is one clear policy that they and the corporations and billionaires that support them will try hardest […]
As we close out 2024, we want to lift up the tax charts we published this year that received the most engagement from readers. Covering federal, state, and local tax work, here are our top charts of 2024.
Tax the Wealthy and Reject Austerity for a More Just and Thriving Democracy
July 1, 2024 • By Amy Hanauer
Two of the last five presidents won office over the objection of the majority of the people; California, with 65 times more people, has the same voting power in the U.S Senate as Wyoming; and the U.S. Supreme Court just permitted South Carolina lawmakers to dilute Black votes in drawing districts. These obvious flaws undermine our claim to be a strong democracy. One less appreciated but similarly undemocratic trend is our extreme inequality that supercharges the power and wealth of corporations and the uber-rich, weakens what the public sector can deliver, and often feeds on itself.
Some states have improved tax equity by raising new revenue from the well-off and creating or expanding refundable tax credits for low- and moderate-income families in recent years. Others, however, have gone the opposite direction, pushing through deep and damaging tax cuts that disproportionately help the rich. Many of these negative developments are quantified in […]
Everything! Taxing wealthy people and corporations and using the revenue for paid leave, child care, education, health care and college would transform America for girls and women of every race and family type, in every corner of this country.
Long-term troubles for this country and this planet now demand our attention. Progressive tax policy would transform our ability to tackle them.
SOTU and GOP Response Highlight Dramatic Difference in Parties’ Tax Policy Approach
March 2, 2022 • By Aidan Davis, ITEP Staff, Jenice Robinson
Since last year, multiple states across the country have proposed or are pursuing costly income and other tax cuts that are heavily tilted toward the highest-income households. State advocates have worked to beat back these proposals and sounded the alarm about the long-term consequences of tax cuts, but legislatures (most GOP-led) continue to introduce and approve top-heavy and permanent tax cuts. This state tax-cut fervor took center stage last night when Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa gave the Republican response to President Biden's SOTU address.
The Compelling Data and Moral Case for Continuing the Child Tax Credit Expansion
January 14, 2022 • By Alex Welch, ITEP Staff, Jenice Robinson
In just six short months, the enhanced Child Tax Credit (CTC), enacted as part of the American Rescue Plan (ARP), decreased the number of children living in poverty by 40 percent. ITEP estimated that the lowest-income 20 percent of households with children would receive a 35 percent income boost from this policy alone in 2021. This is a meaningful, life-changing sum.
The Pendulum Is Swinging Toward Tax Justice
January 5, 2022 • By ITEP Staff, Jenice Robinson, Kamolika Das
Tax justice is deeply connected to the movements for equality and racial justice. Progressive tax policy can ensure more of us share in the prosperous economy that our collective tax dollars make possible. It can mitigate economic disparities by class and race. And it can make sure the government has the resources it needs to function for all of us.
Why Treasury’s Pending Race-Based Analysis of Stimulus Payments is Important
December 21, 2021 • By Emma Sifre
One important data inadequacy is the lack of demographic information in tax data. While the IRS data offers rich data on taxpayer income, it does not collect information on important demographic characteristics like race and ethnicity. This presents a challenge for researchers interested in the racialized impacts of the U.S. tax system and has prompted many researchers and organizations to advocate for public-use tax data that is disaggregated by race and ethnicity.
Pandemic Policies Demonstrate Government Can Address Widening Economic Inequality If Policymakers So Choose
December 17, 2021 • By ITEP Staff, Jenice Robinson, Joe Hughes
We are surrounded by evidence that economic inequality is spinning out of control, yet we also see straightforward examples of how government can stop the downward spiral should it choose to do so. The Build Back Better Act, which invests in communities and ensures the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share, is one such example. Congress should pass it.
Paying The Estate Tax Shouldn’t Be Optional for the Super Rich
November 9, 2021 • By Carl Davis
ProPublica this year released multiple exposés revealing how the nation’s wealthiest individuals and families avoid taxes on an unimaginable scale. Most recently, it uncovered Republican and Democratic elected officials and political appointees who used complex strategies to avoid taxes. Richard Painter, a White House ethics lawyer under George W. Bush, said these revelations should be “troubling […]
Experts Weigh in on the Payoffs of Advanced Child Tax Credit Payments
July 15, 2021 • By Jenice Robinson
During a Tuesday webinar (The Child Tax Credit in Practice: What We Know about the Payoffs of Payments) hosted by ITEP and the Economic Security Project, panelists explained why the expanded Child Tax Credit is a transformative policy that should be extended beyond 2021. They highlighted tax policy and anti-poverty research and discussed lessons learned from demonstration projects that have provided a guaranteed income to low-income families.
State Tax Codes & Racial Inequities: An Illinois Case Study
May 14, 2021 • By Lisa Christensen Gee
Earlier this year, ITEP released a report providing an overview of the impacts of state and local tax policies on race equity. Against a backdrop of vast racial disparities in income and wealth resulting from historical and current injustices both in public policy and in broader society, the report highlights that how states raise revenue to invest in disparity-reducing investments like education, health, and childcare has important implications for race equity.
Attacks on Voting Rights, Secret Tax-Cut Negotiations in Arizona Reflect Broader Trend to Undermine Democracy
May 13, 2021 • By Carl Davis, ITEP Staff, Jenice Robinson
The onslaught of news about multiple states introducing or passing legislation to make it harder to vote is a clear signal that our democracy is in crisis. Decades of policymaking and judicial rulings have created a system in which the voices of the wealthy and powerful have more weight, and some lawmakers are determined to further rig the system and keep it that way.
The Biden administration has made clear that its top priorities include a major recovery package with critical investments to boost the nation’s economy and tax increases for corporations and the wealthy. Adequately funding the IRS must be part of that agenda. It seems every week, a new study, data set or research-driven commentary reveals how […]
With the onslaught of news about billionaire wealth soaring while low- and moderate-income families have trouble making ends meet, a federal wealth tax makes good economic and fiscal sense—and the public supports it. One poll found that 64 percent of respondents favor the idea, including a majority of Republicans.
An Unequal Recession Will Breed Unequal Recovery Without Bold Investments
February 26, 2021 • By Stephanie Clegg
Without bold investments now, experts predict a longer, more unequal recovery. President Biden's American Rescue Plan, the framework for legislation expected to pass this week in the House, would boost economic well-being for those whose livelihoods were most affected by the pandemic-induced economic crisis.
Should lawmakers enact laws that they believe are sensible and constitutional, or should they shape their legislative agenda around what they believe ideological Supreme Court justices will allow? This is a dilemma facing Americans who support a federal wealth tax.
President Biden’s Child Tax Credit Proposal Could Right a Historical Wrong
February 2, 2021 • By ITEP Staff, Jenice Robinson, Meg Wiehe
Many 1990s policies were grounded in harmful, erroneous ideas such as financial struggles are due to personal shortcomings and less government is better. Lawmakers didn’t apply these ideas consistently, however. For example, there was no drive to reduce corporate welfare even as policymakers slashed the safety net and disinvested in lower-income communities. So, it’s not surprising that a bipartisan group of lawmakers concluded during that era that the CTC was an appropriate vehicle to give higher-income households a tax break while leaving out poor children.
Disaggregating Data Illuminates a Path to Equitable Policy
January 27, 2021 • By Jessica Schieder
The Biden administration’s move last week to establish an interagency working group to examine how well data is broken down, or disaggregated, within public sector data sources is welcome news. The executive order specifically names the limited availability of datasets disaggregated “by race, ethnicity, gender, disability, income, veteran status, [and] other key demographic variables.”
A Second Round of Direct Cash Payments Could Provide an Average $1,550 to the Poorest Families
December 8, 2020 • By Jenice Robinson
It will not magically become easier for families to put food on the table or make their next rent payment. Policymakers must act. People are struggling because they are either out of work, involuntarily working part-time, trying to financially catch up after being out of work for a spell, or squeaking by because we live in a wealthy democracy that fails to guarantee basics such as access to affordable housing, health care, food, and jobs that pay living wages.
After the Dust Has Settled: How Progressive Tax Policy Fared in the General Election
November 30, 2020 • By Marco Guzman
While the results of the 2020 presidential election are all but set in stone—and a sign of life for progressive policy—the results of state tax ballot initiatives are more of a mixed bag. However, the overall fight for tax equity and raising more revenue to invest in people and communities is trending in the right direction.
Better tax policies will help communities emerge from the current staggering fiscal crisis with tax structures that reduce inequality at a time when rich people are thriving and public services are under siege. Preserving public spending will boost the economy and improve lives–and cutting these essentials will not only hurt people but also deepen the downturn, a lesson we learned in the Great Recession’s slow recovery. Other states should take note.
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