Local Policy
Economically and racially equitable tax systems are essential to adequately funding education, health, childcare, affordable housing, and other shared priorities. This is especially true at the local level, where the connection between revenue and the quality of public services is extremely clear.
Our local work explores how to rebalance local taxes, including but not limited to:
• Shifting away from fines and fees as revenue-raisers,
• Considering local tax credits to bolster economic security and promote healthy communities,
• Removing state legal barriers to equitable local taxes,
• Reforming property tax assessments that widen racial and economic disparities,
• Ensuring that localities can raise revenue to tackle urgent challenges in public health, early childhood education, and more.
Featured Research
How Local Governments Raise Revenue — and What it Means for Tax Equity
Local taxes are key to thriving communities. One in seven tax dollars in the U.S.—about $886 billion annually—is levied by local governments in support of education, infrastructure, public health, and other priorities. Three fourths of this funding comes from property taxes, 18 percent comes from sales and excise taxes, and six percent comes from income taxes.
Anti-Tax Revolts Backfire: What We’ve Learned from 50 Years of Property Tax Limits
Across-the-board property tax cuts create less fair local tax systems in the long run. State legislators and local governments should…
How the 50 Largest American Cities Raise Revenue and What That Means for Tax Equity
Large cities have the technical capacity, the economic base, and often more political might than smaller localities and governments that…
Local Governments Are Increasingly Strapped: 2026 Will Bring New Challenges and New Opportunities
2025 saw an intensification of state and local tax fights across the country, as well as growing experimentation with local-option…
Filter Local Research
Testimony: ITEP’s Nick Johnson weighs in on revenue options for the District of Columbia
• By Nick Johnson
A D.C. Business Activity Tax, or BAT, meets commonly held standards for sound tax policy.
Tallying Up the Impact of Florida’s Property Tax Ballot Measure on Local Communities
• By Neva Butkus
Florida voters will soon vote on Amendment 3, which would create a pathway for non-school property tax elimination in the state. If passed, the measure would cost local governments $13.7 billion in the first two years alone.
How the 50 Largest American Cities Raise Revenue and What That Means for Tax Equity
• By Rita Jefferson, Nick Johnson, Galen Hendricks
Large cities have the technical capacity, the economic base, and often more political might than smaller localities and governments that local officials should utilize to design fairer tax systems.
New Yorkers, Please Pay Your City Income Taxes: Why the Pied-à-Terre Tax Rollout Is Not Worth a Meltdown
• By Rita Jefferson
The news coverage of the second home tax has been disconnected from the real living conditions for the millions of New Yorkers who don’t own a second (or third, or fourth) home.
Localities Try Vacant Land Taxes, Mansion Taxes and Second Home Taxes
• By Rita Jefferson
In 2026, cities, counties, and school districts must manage tax cuts coming from federal and state governments, the end of federal pandemic aid, rising costs, and a stagnant economy. This challenging environment is forcing municipalities of all types to ask how they can best fund core priorities and invest in communities in the long term.
How To Build A Better City Budget
• By Rita Jefferson
As rising costs strain our community and household budgets, Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker’s proposed taxes attempted to patch gaping holes with meager solutions.
NYC and Montana Lead the Way on Second-Home Taxes
• By Rita Jefferson
Second home taxes make a lot of sense for communities struggling with housing costs for full-time residents. They can raise real revenues too, which can be used to support further affordable housing development.
Tax the Rich, Fund Our Communities: Local Options for Progressive Revenue
• By Rita Jefferson, Nick Johnson, Angelo Pis-Dudot
The task for local elected officials in this moment is therefore clear: use available tools to make the wealthy pay their fair share to fund the essential public goods that allow our communities to live safe, healthy, and thriving lives.
The Bears Bill Is Bad by Design. Here’s How.
• By Rita Jefferson, Amanda Kass, Kristan Wong Karinen
State lawmakers are debating whether to subsidize a new Chicago Bears stadium in Arlington Heights, but this bill creates a new statewide property tax cut program for large development projects.
Travelers’ Checks: How to Tax Tourists in States and Localities
• By Rita Jefferson
Taxing tourists is a relatively efficient way to ensure that visitors are paying a share of essential government services. Places with a modest number of tourists should limit general sales tax rates to minimize the effect on the full-time population. Places with higher proportions of tourists may have higher sales tax rates to better capture the economic behavior of tourists.
Property Tax Reforms Can Bring Racial Justice
• By Brakeyshia Samms
Homes in Black neighborhoods are more likely to be over-assessed for tax purposes while being undervalued by private appraisers.
D.C.’s Fiscal Autonomy is at Stake, District’s Conformity Decisions Should Stand
• By Kamolika Das
Federal lawmakers passed a bill along party lines that would force the District of Columbia to override the decision of local elected officials and implement all of the costly and inequitable federal tax cuts passed under the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA).
Local Governments Are Increasingly Strapped: 2026 Will Bring New Challenges and New Opportunities
• By Kamolika Das
2025 saw an intensification of state and local tax fights across the country, as well as growing experimentation with local-option taxes, levies, fees, and tourism taxes aimed at keeping budgets afloat while also navigating political constraints imposed by state legislatures.
Pennsylvania Just Gave Low-Income Workers a Tax Credit Boost. Now It’s Philadelphia’s Turn.
• By Kamolika Das
In the same way states are building upon federal tax credits, localities should consider building on state tax credits.
2025: The Year in Tax Policy
• By ITEP Staff
From Congressional discussions over the so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" to debates on property taxes, ITEP kept busy this year analyzing tax proposals and showing Americans across the country how tax decisions affect them.
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and Economic Policy
ITEP is a non-profit, non-partisan tax policy organization. We conduct rigorous analyses of tax and economic proposals and provide data-driven recommendations to shape equitable and sustainable tax systems.
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