Citations
ITEP's Citations Research Priorities
North Carolina Budget & Tax Center: Income tax limits would deepen racial inequity in NC
• By ITEP Staff
This November, North Carolinians will vote on a constitutional amendment that would limit the state income tax rate to 3.5 percent both for personal and corporate income taxes, a significant decrease from 7 percent, which was the maximum rate approved by voters in 2018.
USA TODAY: States are relying more on sales taxes. Here’s why that matters
July 30, 2026
Over time, some states have slashed corporate and personal income taxes while also raising the sales tax rate. In 11 states, “all three of those things have happened,” said Sarah Austin, a senior analyst at ITEP and author of the report.
North Carolina Department of Commerce: The Hidden Cost of Child Care Gaps in North Carolina’s Economy
• By ITEP Staff
Lack of access to affordable, high-quality child care is a barrier to labor force participation for working parents in North Carolina and affects our state’s economy. Read more.
NC Budget & Tax Center: Jan. 1: Tax cuts for the rich in NC — still no state budget
• By ITEP Staff
The New Year will bring little certainty to everyday North Carolinians. State legislators have failed to use the policy tools available to them to address rising costs for the basics, from food to child-care to housing. Read more.
NC Newsline: NC Lawmakers Urged to Act as Federal Cuts Threaten State Services
July 10, 2025
A coalition of policy experts and wealthy advocates warned North Carolina lawmakers that recent federal budget cuts could devastate state services, urging action to protect health care, food assistance and other public programs.
NC Budget & Tax Center: It’s Time for a Millionaire’s Tax in North Carolina
• By ITEP Staff
According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, this NC Senate proposal alone would deliver an additional average annual tax cut of $64,700 to millionaires in North Carolina, on top of their federal tax cuts and more than a decade of state cuts. This is more than 52 times the average amount received by non-millionaires, who would see roughly $1,200.
North Carolina Budget & Tax Center: The Economic and Fiscal Impacts of Mass Deportation: What’s At Risk in North Carolina.
• By ITEP Staff
In 2022, people who are undocumented paid $692 million in North Carolina state and local taxes.[ii] If ten percent of people who are undocumented are deported it would result in a loss of $69 million per year in state and local tax revenues.
North Carolina Budget & Tax Center: Faced with pausing tax cuts for the rich or lowering state spending, NC Senate budget sides with the wealthy few
• By ITEP Staff
They will risk recurring budget deficits. They will risk an inability to protect North Carolinians from federal Medicaid and food assistance cuts. To deliver these tax cuts, they will cut funding for the state’s public K-12 students and community college students.
North Carolina Budget & Tax Center: North Carolinians Deserve the Credit
• By ITEP Staff
Despite strong state performance in job growth and employment, too many households in North Carolina are struggling to make ends meet and cope with the rising cost of living — especially those with young children. Widespread low incomes and elevated poverty rates are preventing families from meeting their needs, reaching their potential, and contributing their full talents to our communities. The prevalence of this financial hardship has direct consequences for the long-term well-being of children…
Audio: ITEP’s Carl Davis Discusses North Carolina’s Upside-Down Tax Code
January 23, 2024
Ever since Republicans took control of the North Carolina legislature in 2011, they’ve passed income tax cut after income tax cut and bragged repeatedly of the supposed enormous benefits this has afforded to average North Carolinians
North Carolina Budget & Tax Center: NC Leaders Are Shirking Their Responsibilities To Our Children, Our State by Revisiting Leandro Lawsuit
• By ITEP Staff
The announcement that the NC Supreme Court will rehear the court case that affirmed children’s constitutional right to a sound, basic education is just another way in which North Carolina’s legislative leaders are attempting to rewrite the rules to further their agenda rather than the well-being of children. Read more.
North Carolina Budget & Tax Center: Tax Changes in NC Senate Budget Plan Benefit Richest, Worsen Racial Inequities
• By ITEP Staff
The NC Senate tax plan will double down on the path to zero income tax — keeping in place the elimination of the corporate income tax and reducing the personal income tax to 2.49 percent after 2029 — to benefit the very wealthy and profitable corporations. Read more.
North Carolina Budget & Tax Center: Missing the Mark for North Carolina
• By ITEP Staff
Inflation isn’t just a pocketbook problem, it’s a budget problem as well. Governments feel the pinch of gas prices climbing higher, food becoming more expensive, and increased competition from private sector employers as well as most of the impacts of inflation that affect consumers and businesses. Unfortunately, the 2022-23 budget allows inflation to undermine the […]
Bloomberg: SALT Debate Forces Rich Americans to Confront Widening Tax Gap
December 10, 2021
Lawmakers in Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio and Oklahoma have also approved cuts to their top personal income tax going into effect either this year or in future years. “There are states moving in different directions,” said Carl Davis, research director at the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. […]
North Carolina Policy Watch: NC House Tax Plan Isn’t Good for Our State (And These Graphs Explain Why This Is the Case)
• By ITEP Staff
The House tax plan would deliver the greatest share of the net tax cut to the richest North Carolinians. Fifty-six percent of the net tax cut would go to the richest 20 percent in North Carolina. During the House Finance debate, proponents of the tax plan suggested that North Carolinians with poverty-level incomes would see […]
North Carolina Policy Watch: NC’s Tax Code Reinforces Racial Exclusion; Senate’s Proposed Budget Would Make Matters Worse
• By ITEP Staff
When one applies a unique tool developed by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy to assess the racial and ethnic impact of the budget proposal approved by the state Senate in June (SB 105), it becomes clear that the proposed income tax reductions will worsen the state’s exclusionary tax code. This analysis should serve […]
North Carolina Justice Center: Five Takeaways from the Senate’s Budget Proposal
• By ITEP Staff
The Senate’s budget plan would bring the state’s investments to a new low while committing the state to untold losses in the form of revenue reductions by eliminating income taxes for profitable corporations by 2028 and lowering the already flat (read: regressive) personal income tax rate. Read more
NC Policy Watch: NC needs to fix its tax code to secure a just recovery — for everyone
• By ITEP Staff
North Carolina’s current tax code asks the top to pay less as a share of their income than taxpayers with poverty-level incomes. By putting in place tax policies that would ask just 1 percent of North Carolinians to pay slightly more, North Carolina can invest in a more equitable, just recovery for everyone. Read more
NC Policy Watch: Some simple truths about the taxes corporations pay and Biden’s proposal blow the whistle on them
• By ITEP Staff
Discovery No. 1 one is that almost no major U.S. corporation, certainly not those that do business overseas, actually pays the 21% corporate tax rate, set by law. In fact, on average, Fortune 500 companies pay about half that much – 11.3% according to the non-profit Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy and Taxation, working […]
NC Policy Watch: New report: NC tax policy promotes racial inequities in numerous ways
• By ITEP Staff
North Carolina’s tax code and budget are wrought with such policy choices, which can result in racist outcome that worsen barriers to well-being for people and communities of color, according to new data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). The greater tax load carried by Black, Indigenous, and Latinx residents has been […]
North Carolina Justice Center: State Tax Policy Is Not Race Neutral
• By ITEP Staff
North Carolina’s tax code and budget are wrought with such policy choices, which can result in racist outcomes that worsen barriers to well-being for people and communities of color, according to new data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). The greater tax load carried by Black, Indigenous, and Latinx residents has been […]
Indy Week: Anti-Poverty Advocates Rejoice Over New Child Tax Credit
March 24, 2021
It’s hard to overstate the significance of the expanded tax credit for low-income families. Information released by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that more than 2.6 million children in North Carolina stand to benefit from the credit, and the Center on Budget and Policy has calculated that the legislation will move 137,000 […]
South Strong: Racial Equity and Taxes in Southern States
• By Amy Hanauer, Meg Wiehe
Southern states have a particularly egregious record on tax equity, rooted partly in racism. Lawmakers baked some of the most egregious and anti-democratic tax policies into southern state constitutions, such as supermajority requirements to raise taxes in Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana, income tax rate caps in North Carolina and Georgia, and the recent elimination of […]
Washington State Budget and Policy Center: It’s time to include undocumented immigrants in state response to COVID-19
• By ITEP Staff
In addition to state and local taxes, new estimates show that the labor of undocumented workers in Washington state has resulted in nearly $400 million of contributions to the state and federal unemployment trust fund over the past ten years. Yet these workers are systematically denied protection when they become unemployed. Read more
NC Policy Watch: Those Federal COVID-19 Checks: What They Mean and Who Might Get Left Out
• By ITEP Staff
In a replay of how aid checks were dispensed during the Great Recession, the CARES Act reveals giant holes in how we get cash to people in desperate need. Without federal, state, and local policy action, many of the North Carolinians who need aid most urgently will be the last to get it or won’t […]
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