Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP)

Citations

ITEP's Citations Research Priorities

(For a detailed illustration of how this works—and some nice figures—I’d recommend this piece from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.)

The policy brief, “Centering Black Households in the 2025 Tax Debate,” analyzes how the proposed extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) would affect Black communities.

Washington Post: GOP Rejects ‘Millionaire Tax’ Pitch, Advancing Breaks for Rich Americans

May 28, 2025

House Republicans rejected a push by some allies of President Donald Trump to include tax hikes on the rich in sweeping legislation they passed last week — a decision that could carry repercussions into next year’s elections.

Audio: ITEP’s Matt Gardner Discusses SALT Cap on ‘Here & Now'”

May 27, 2025

Lawmakers are divided over how to deal with the state and local tax deduction or SALT, after the House passed its version of the Republican spending bill last week. The cap tends to impact Americans who live in higher-tax states particularly hard.

As the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy notes, the top 1 percent of Floridians (those with income of more than $1.1 million annually) would receive an average tax cut of $86,320 in 2026. As a share of the tax cuts, in 2026, the top 1 percent would receive 25 percent of the total tax cuts.

An analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) highlights just how lopsided the bill’s tax provisions are.

Analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows that the richest 1 percent of taxpayers in the District will get the biggest tax cut—one being paid for by slashing federal basic needs programs for tens of millions of Americans.

Cincinnati Enquirer: Ohio Homeowners Want Property Tax Relief. Other States May Offer a Solution

May 26, 2025

"Families are overloaded with their property taxes," said Brakeyshia Samms, a senior analyst for the institute. "The circuit breaker kicks in like an electrical circuit breaker and helps alleviate the pressure that these taxes put on family budgets."

New York Times: Religious Education Lost at the Supreme Court. But It’s Winning Everywhere Else.

May 24, 2025

The court rejected a religious charter school, but conservatives may get much of what they want in a school voucher program that passed the House this week. Read more.

The Guardian: Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Benefits the Rich at the Expense of the Poor

May 24, 2025

Republicans in Congress are trying to pass a new tax and spending bill that may end up being a “big, beautiful bill” – but mostly for wealthy Americans. Read more.

NPR: 9 Things to Know about the Big, Private-School Voucher Plan in Republicans’ Tax Bill

May 23, 2025

"It's about three times as generous as what you're gonna get from donating to a children's hospital or a veteran's group or any other cause," says Carl Davis at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. "It really preferences voucher groups over every other kind of charity."

The 2017 tax law imposed new immigration-related restrictions on the Child Tax Credit, requiring, for the first time that children have a Social Security number (SSN). This change denied the credit to up to 1 million children.

NBC News: Education Groups Alarmed Over Budget Bill’s Boost for Private Schools

May 23, 2025

“The result would be a profitable tax shelter for wealthy people who agree to help funnel public funds into private schools,” Amy Hanauer, the institute’s executive director, said in the webinar. “That is to say they would get more money by donating their stock than by selling it.”

Axios: Child Tax Benefit Increase Leaves out Millions of Kids, Analysis Says

May 23, 2025

Under current law, families need upward of $30,000 a year to receive the full tax credit amount, explains Joe Hughes, senior analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

The American Prospect: The Curious Case of the Republican Medicaid Turncoats

May 23, 2025

“It’s not surprising that this bill was written behind closed doors and rushed through in the night before Americans had a chance to see what it contains,” Amy Hanauer, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, told the Prospect. “This bill extends enormous tax cuts to those who have the most. It will increase inequality, reduce health coverage, and take food from people’s tables, all to shower the wealthiest people in this country and foreign investors with tax breaks.”

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: What Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ Will Mean to Pa. — and It’s Not Pretty

May 23, 2025

“This bill overall would cut all sorts of benefits for all sorts of Americans who rely on them, whether it’s health care or food assistance or energy credits,” said Jon Whiten, ITEP deputy director. “It’s all being done to find enough money to jam through all of these tax cuts which disproportionately would go to the wealthiest Americans. It’s a little bit like Robin Hood in reverse here.”

If Congress extends the 2017 tax cuts as planned, by itself this would yield the top 5 percent of households in DC an average annual tax cut of up to $36,000, depending on how much the cap on deductions for state and local taxes (SALT) is loosened or if it is eliminated altogether (according to unpublished data analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy for DCFPI)

In 2022, people who are undocumented paid nearly $1 billion ($997 million) in Washington state and local taxes.2 If 10% of people who are undocumented are deported, it would result in a loss of $100 million per year in state and local tax revenues.

Inc.: Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Offers a Big Tax Win for Small Businesses

May 22, 2025

The bill that the House of Representatives passed early Thursday morning in a nail-biting 215-to-214 vote—a wide-ranging domestic policy package called the One Big Beautiful Bill—could have wide-ranging and long-lasting implications for U.S. small businesses. Read more.

ITEP further explained how regressive the GOP tax bill is: “While working-class families (defined here loosely as the bottom 40 percent of earners) could expect an average tax cut of $361 in 2027, the nation’s highest-income families (defined as the top 0.1 percent) would receive an average tax cut of at least $255,670 in that year.”

In 2022, people who are undocumented paid an estimated $1.3 billion in New Jersey state and local taxes.[3]

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.

I write to outline my concerns and provide you with a set of questions about them. I ask that you review my questions and come to your Senate Finance Committee hearing prepared to answer them in full. I also ask that you provide written answers prior to any committee vote on your nomination.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is sounding the alarm on the deeply troubling federal reconciliation bill making its way through Congress that would funnel billions of public dollars into religious education, erode secular public institutions, and give unprecedented power to the executive branch to target tax-exempt nonprofits — potentially including FFRF itself.

Washington Post: House GOP Plan to Raise Child Tax Credit Adds Citizenship Provisions

May 16, 2025

“This is, by definition, all children who are legally supposed to be here in the country,” said Joe Hughes, an analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy who worked on the study