ITEP Work in Action
Advocates and policymakers at the state and federal levels rely on ITEP’s analytic capabilities to inform their debates on proposed tax policy changes. In any given year, ITEP fields requests for analyses of policies in 25 or more states. ITEP also works with national partners to provide analyses of federal tax policy proposals. This section highlights reports that use ITEP analyses to make a compelling case for progressive tax reforms.
North Carolina Department of Commerce: The Hidden Cost of Child Care Gaps in North Carolina’s Economy
January 20, 2026
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
January 5, 2026
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 Budget & Tax Center: It’s Time for a Millionaire’s Tax in North Carolina
June 26, 2025
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.
May 21, 2025
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
April 23, 2025
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
October 11, 2024
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 and our state’s economy.
North Carolina Budget & Tax Center: NC Leaders Are Shirking Their Responsibilities To Our Children, Our State by Revisiting Leandro Lawsuit
November 17, 2023
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
May 25, 2023
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
September 28, 2022
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 […]
North Carolina Policy Watch: NC House Tax Plan Isn’t Good for Our State (And These Graphs Explain Why This Is the Case)
August 10, 2021
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
July 30, 2021
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
June 23, 2021
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
April 23, 2021
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
April 14, 2021
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
April 14, 2021
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
April 13, 2021
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 […]
South Strong: Racial Equity and Taxes in Southern States
August 26, 2020
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
May 21, 2020
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
April 2, 2020
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 […]
Budget & Tax Center: A Costly Cover for More Business Tax Cuts in NC
October 25, 2019
Analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows that 27 percent of the total net tax cut from the increase in the standard deduction will actually go to the top 20 percent, while just 7 percent will go to the bottom 20 percent whose income leaves them in poverty each year. Read more
North Carolina Justice Center: Higher Rates on Higher Income: Why a Graduated Income Tax is Good Policy for North Carolina
March 20, 2019
At the same time, a graduated rate structure — in contrast with the state’s current flat tax rate on income — can make more revenue available for key public investments, generating broad-based benefits to many people and communities. It is also better able to keep up with the needs of a growing state. That is […]
NC Policy Watch: Report: Corporations Are Stiffing North Carolina on $373 Million in State Taxes
January 23, 2019
It turns out that state leaders can ensure that companies pay the proper amount of taxes on income generated from business conducted in their jurisdictions, but existing tax codes at the state level often allow loopholes for smart corporate tax lawyers to exploit. Corporations often use accounting sleights of hand to move income around within […]
NC Policy Watch: North Carolina’s Tax Code Isn’t Helping the State’s Growing Inequality
October 22, 2018
Despite claims by the architects of North Carolina’s failed tax-cut experiment, policy choices since 2013 have not ensured that middle and low-income taxpayers are paying lower shares of their income in state and local taxes. Instead the richest taxpayers—whose average income is more than $1 million—continue to pay 33 percent less in state and local taxes as a share of their income than taxpayers who have averages incomes annually of $11,000, a threshold that aligns with deep poverty.
NC Policy Watch: Low-income Tax Payers in NC Pay More of Their Income in State and Local Taxes Each Year Than the Richest Taxpayers
October 17, 2018
Sales taxes play a critical role in the regressive and consequently inequitable nature of the North Carolina tax system. Like most other states, North Carolina relies on sales and excise taxes (30.7% of the 2018-2019 approved budget) as a primary mechanism to raise revenue. However, in North Carolina, sales and excise taxes are the most regressive taxes when compared to income and property taxes. The lowest 20% of North Carolina workers pay 6.1 percent in sales taxes as a percentage of their income while the top 1 percent pays less than 1 percent in sales taxes as a percentage of…
BTC Report: Income tax rate cap amendment is costly for taxpayers, communities
September 28, 2018
Imposing an arbitrary income tax cap in the North Carolina Constitution could fundamentally compromise our state’s ability to fund our schools, roads, and public health, as well as raise the cost of borrowing. This could all happen even as the tax load shifts even further onto middle- and low-income taxpayers and the state’s highest income taxpayers — the top 1 percent — continue to benefit from recent tax changes since 2013.
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