Publications
State-by-State Tax Expenditure Reports
• By ITEP Staff
Below is a list of tax expenditure reports published in the states.
Re-Examining 529 Plans: Stopping State Subsidies to Private Schools After New Trump Tax Law
• By Miles Trinidad, Nick Johnson
The 2025 federal tax law risks making 529 plans more costly for states by increasing tax avoidance and allowing wealthy families to use these funds for private and religious K-12 schools.
State Tax Dollars Shouldn’t Subsidize Federal Opportunity Zones
• By Eli Byerly-Duke
The Opportunity Zones program benefits wealthy investors more than it benefits disadvantaged communities.
The Potential of Local Child Tax Credits to Reduce Child Poverty
• By Kamolika Das, Aidan Davis, Galen Hendricks, Rita Jefferson
Local governments have a critical role to play in reducing child poverty. Local Child Tax Credits could provide large tax cuts to families at the bottom of the income scale, lessening the overall regressivity of state and local tax systems.
Sales Tax Holidays Miss the Mark When it Comes to Effective Sales Tax Reform
• By Miles Trinidad
Sales tax holidays are often marketed as relief for everyday families, but they do little to address the deeper inequities of regressive sales taxes. In 2025, 18 states offer these holidays at a collective cost of $1.3 billion.
Analysis of Tax Provisions in the Trump Megabill as Signed into Law: National and State Level Estimates
• By Steve Wamhoff, Carl Davis, Joe Hughes, Jessica Vela
President Trump has signed into law the tax and spending “megabill” that largely favors the richest taxpayers and provides working-class Americans with relatively small tax cuts that will in many cases be more than offset by Trump's tariffs.
Analysis of Tax Provisions in the House Reconciliation Bill: National and State Level Estimates
• By Carl Davis, Jessica Vela, Joe Hughes, Steve Wamhoff
The poorest fifth of Americans would receive 1 percent of the House reconciliation bill's net tax cuts in 2026 while the richest fifth of Americans would receive two-thirds of the tax cuts. The richest 5 percent alone would receive a little less than half of the net tax cuts that year.
Trump 2025 Tax Law: Research and Resources
• By ITEP Staff
Want to know more about the tax and spending megabill that President Trump recently signed into law? We've got you covered.
The (Mostly Untapped) Power of Local Income Taxes
• By Rita Jefferson
Local income taxes can be an important progressive revenue raiser, as they ask more of higher-income households and are connected to ability to pay. They can raise substantial revenue to fund key public services to make cities and regions better off.
Trump’s Plan to Extend His 2017 Tax Provisions: Updated National and State-by-State Estimates
• By Steve Wamhoff
Trump’s plan to make most of the temporary provisions of his 2017 tax law permanent would disproportionately benefit the richest Americans. This includes all major provisions except the $10,000 cap on deductions for state and local taxes (SALT) paid.
Extending Temporary Provisions of the 2017 Trump Tax Law: Updated National and State-by-State Estimates
• By Steve Wamhoff
The TCJA Permanency Act would make permanent the provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 that are set to expire at the end of 2025. The legislation would disproportionately benefit the richest Americans. Below are graphics for each state that show the effects of making TCJA permanent across income groups. See ITEP’s […]
Sales Tax Holidays Miss the Mark When it Comes to Effective Sales Tax Reform
• By Marco Guzman
Nineteen states have sales tax holidays on the books in 2024. These suspensions combined will cost states and localities over $1.3 billion in lost revenue this year. Sales tax holidays are poorly targeted and too temporary to meaningfully change the regressive nature of a state’s tax system.
Tax Payments by Undocumented Immigrants
• By ITEP Staff
Undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022. Providing access to work authorization for undocumented immigrants would increase their tax contributions both because their wages would rise and because their rates of tax compliance would increase.
Improving Refundable Tax Credits by Making Them Immigrant-Inclusive
• By Emma Sifre, Marco Guzman
Undocumented immigrants who work and pay taxes but don't have a valid Social Security number for either themselves or their children are excluded from federal EITC and CTC benefits. Fortunately, several states have stepped in to ensure undocumented immigrants are not left behind by the gaps in the federal EITC and CTC. State lawmakers should continue to ensure that immigrants who are otherwise eligible for these tax credits receive them.
States Should Enact, Expand Mansion Taxes to Advance Fairness and Shared Prosperity
• By Carl Davis, Erika Frankel
The report was produced in partnership with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and co-authored by CBPP’s Deputy Director of State Policy Research Samantha Waxman.[1] Click here to use our State Mansion Tax Estimator A historically large share of the nation’s wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, a reality glaring in […]
Fairness Matters: A Chart Book on Who Pays State and Local Taxes
• By ITEP Staff
State and local tax codes can do a lot to reduce inequality. But they add to the nation’s growing income inequality problem when they capture a greater share of income from low- or moderate-income taxpayers. These regressive tax codes also result in higher tax rates on communities of color, further worsening racial income and wealth divides.
America Used to Have a Wealth Tax: The Forgotten History of the General Property Tax
• By Carl Davis, Eli Byerly-Duke
Over time, broad wealth taxes were whittled away to become the narrower property taxes we have today. These selective wealth taxes apply to the kinds of wealth that make up a large share of middle-class families’ net worth (like homes and cars), but usually exempt most of the net worth of the wealthy (like business equity, bonds, and pooled investment funds).The rationale for this pared-back approach to wealth taxation has grown weaker in recent decades…
Sales Tax Holidays: An Ineffective Alternative to Real Sales Tax Reform
• By Marco Guzman
Nineteen states have sales tax holidays on the books in 2023, and these suspensions will cost nearly $1.6 billion in lost revenue this year. Sales tax holidays are poorly targeted and too temporary to meaningfully change the regressive nature of a state’s tax system. Overall, the benefits of sales tax holidays are minimal while their downsides are significant.
Extending Temporary Provisions of the 2017 Trump Tax Law: National and State-by-State Estimates
• By Joe Hughes, Matthew Gardner, Steve Wamhoff
The push by Congressional Republicans to make the provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent would cost nearly $300 billion in the first year and deliver the bulk of the tax benefits to the wealthiest Americans.
State Child Tax Credits and Child Poverty: A 50-State Analysis
• By Aidan Davis
Regardless of future Child Tax Credit developments at the federal level, state policies can supplement the federal credit to deliver additional benefits to children and families. State credits can be specifically tailored to meet the needs of local populations while also producing long-term benefits for society as a whole
Sales Tax Holidays: An Ineffective Alternative to Real Sales Tax Reform
• By Marco Guzman
Lawmakers in many states have enacted “sales tax holidays” (20 states will hold them in 2022) to temporarily suspend the tax on purchases of clothing, school supplies, and other items. These holidays may seem to lessen the regressive impacts of the sales tax, but their benefits are minimal while their downsides are significant—particularly as lawmakers have sought to apply the concept as a substitute for more meaningful, permanent reform or arbitrarily reward people with specific…
Creating Racially and Economically Equitable Tax Policy in the South
• By Kamolika Das
The South's negative outcomes on measures of wellbeing are the result of a century and a half of policy choices. Lawmakers have many options available to make concrete improvements to tax policy that would raise more revenue, do so equitably, and generate resources that could improve schools, healthcare, social services, infrastructure, and other public resources.
State Income Taxes and Racial Equity: Narrowing Racial Income and Wealth Gaps with State Personal Income Taxes
• By Carl Davis, Jessica Schieder, Marco Guzman
10 state personal income tax reforms that offer the most promising routes toward narrowing racial income and wealth gaps through the tax code.
Sales Tax Holidays: An Ineffective Alternative to Real Sales Tax Reform
• By Dylan Grundman O'Neill
Policymakers tout sales tax holidays as a way for families to save money while shopping for “essential” goods. On the surface, this sounds good. However, a two- to three-day sales tax holiday for selected items does nothing to reduce taxes for low- and moderate-income taxpayers during the other 362 days of the year. Sales taxes are inherently regressive. In the long run, sales tax holidays leave a regressive tax system unchanged, and the benefits of…
Taxes and Racial Equity: An Overview of State and Local Policy Impacts
• By ITEP Staff
Historic and current injustices, both in public policy and in broader society, have resulted in vast disparities in income and wealth across race and ethnicity. Employment discrimination has denied good job opportunities to people of color. An uneven system of public education funding advantages wealthier white people and produces unequal educational outcomes. Racist policies such as redlining and discrimination in lending practices have denied countless Black families the opportunity to become homeowners or business owners,…
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