Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

ITEP Work in Action

West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy: Big Beautiful Bill’s Tax Cuts Overwhelmingly Favor the Wealthiest in West Virginia Even Before Accounting for Tariffs and Benefit Cuts

May 31, 2025

Earlier this month the U.S. House of Representatives passed a major new tax and spending bill that not only represents the largest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP in history, taking away SNAP and Medicaid benefits from millions of recipients including tens of thousands in West Virginia, but also includes tax provisions that would overwhelmingly favor the richest taxpayers in […]

Migration Policy Institute: Seeking to Ramp Up Deportations, the Trump Administration Quietly Expands a Vast Web of Data

May 29, 2025

For example, the U.S. tax system mostly functions on voluntary compliance. Unauthorized immigrants contributed nearly $100 billion in local, state, and federal taxes in 2022, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates. Concerns that taxpayers’ information could be shared with ICE could lead to a decline in compliance, resulting in reduced tax revenue.

Brookings: The Educational Choice for Children Act Opens the Door to Waste, Fraud, and Abuse

May 29, 2025

(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.)

Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies: Centering Black Households in the 2025 Tax Debate

May 29, 2025

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.

Florida Policy Institute: 4 Things That Floridians Should Know About the US House Reconciliation Bill

May 27, 2025

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.

Colorado Fiscal Institute: One Big Beautiful Betrayal

May 27, 2025

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

DC Fiscal Policy Institute: House Tax Bill Would Be a Massive Giveaway for the Wealthiest Washingtonians

May 27, 2025

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.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: House Republican Tax Bill Is Skewed to Wealthy, Costs More Than Extending 2017 Tax Law, and Fails to Deliver for Families

May 23, 2025

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.

DC Fiscal Policy Institute: Raising Revenue Is An Urgent and Practical Approach to Reducing the Harm of DC’s Recession

May 22, 2025

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)

Washington State Budget & Policy Center: The Economic and Fiscal Impacts of Mass Deportation: What’s at Risk in Washington State

May 22, 2025

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.

Media Matters for America: Fox’s Maria Bartiromo Whips Republican Support for Devastating Medicaid Cuts

May 21, 2025

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.”

New Jersey Policy Perspective: The Economic and Fiscal Impacts of Mass Deportation: What’s at Risk in New Jersey

May 21, 2025

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

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.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren: Letter Re: IRS Commissioner Nominee Billy Long

May 20, 2025

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.

Freedom from Religion Foundation: FFRF Warns of Constitutional Threats in Congressional Reconciliation Bill

May 16, 2025

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.

Invest in Louisiana: The Many Benefits of Working Family Tax Credits

May 9, 2025

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy’s Neva Butkus explains how state-level EITCs supports families and workers by offsetting regressive state tax systems:

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: Broad Property Tax Cuts Won’t Provide Relief to Those Most Impacted by High Housing Costs: Renters With Low Incomes

May 8, 2025

State and local policymakers have an important role to play in increasing housing affordability by advancing policies that address the root cause of the housing crisis: bringing down the costs of housing and increasing people’s incomes to help them afford it. Investment in rental assistance is a key solution.

Brookings: How a Federal Tax-Credit Scholarship Plan would Benefit the Wealthy and Underserve Rural America

May 7, 2025

We explain how this type of program could work, and we explore some of its implications, especially for rural communities. In doing so, we focus our analysis on the bill currently before Congress: the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) of 2025.

ITEP Testimony: Miles Trinidad on Rhode Island’s High-Earner Income Tax Surcharge

May 6, 2025

This written testimony was submitted to the Rhode Island House Finance Committee on May 6, 2025.  Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony in support of H-5473, a bill to create a 3 percent surcharge on those earning over $625,000 a year. My name is Miles Trinidad. I am an analyst at the Institute […]

Florida Policy Institute: Florida Budget Proposals in Brief (FY 2025-26): Tax and Revenue

May 3, 2025

The Legislature is at a standstill, with two seemingly competing visions for the future of taxes in Florida. On the one hand, the House of Representatives advanced House Bill (HB) 7033 with various changes to the state’s general sales tax, as well as changes to local tourist development taxes. Read more.

Media Matters for America: Fox News’ Many Justifications for Extending Trump’s Tax Cut for the Wealthy

April 30, 2025

Fox News personalities have gone all in supporting President Donald Trump’s plan to extend his unpopular 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, offering a hodgepodge of justifications for why it’s necessary to keep taxes low for rich people and businesses as Congress moves to slash billions in social safety net programs.

Video: ITEP’s Amy Hanauer Discusses Billionaires, Taxes, and More at FP Solutions Summit

April 25, 2025

On April 24, 2025 ITEP Executive Director Amy Hanauer spoke on the panel “The Billionaire Tax Debate: Rethinking Fiscal Responsibility Around the World,” at the FP Solutions Summit. Video is embedded below (the relevant panel begins around the 38:30 mark).

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: Immigrants Contribute Greatly to the Social Security Trust Fund’s Solvency

April 25, 2025

Immigrants are a critical part of the U.S. workforce and play a key role in strengthening Social Security’s finances. Like all other workers, immigrants contribute to the trust fund through payroll taxes. Even if they themselves will not become eligible to receive benefits in their lifetimes, immigrants improve the solvency of a program that provides almost all workers with a foundation of income for their retirement.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: Mississippi Moves to Eliminate Income Tax, Deepening Inequality and Threatening Public Services

April 25, 2025

Mississippi policymakers have taken one of the most extreme steps in state tax policy in recent years: enacting a law that will gradually phase out the state’s personal income tax. Signed by Gov. Tate Reeves in March, the move begins the final stage of a years-long push to dismantle a key pillar of the state’s tax system, which has long helped fund education, health care, infrastructure, and other core services.

George W. Bush Presidential Center: The Policy Implications of the IRS-ICE Data Sharing Agreement

April 23, 2025

There may be substantial policy implications, too. While ICE maintains that it will only be used in narrow circumstances to aid criminal investigations, a policy like this could still discourage people with an ITIN from filing their taxes out of fear that a tax return might make them a target for deportation.  

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.