Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

State Corporate Taxes

brief  

Advantaging Affluence: A Distributional Analysis of Missouri HB 798’s Uneven Tax Cuts for Wealth and Work

March 28, 2025 • By Aidan Davis, Carl Davis, Dylan Grundman O'Neill, Eli Byerly-Duke, Matthew Gardner

Missouri House Bill 798 would reduce personal and corporate income tax rates, fully eliminate taxes on capital gains income from sale of assets, and eliminates the state’s modest Earned Income Tax Credit that assists many working people in lower-paid jobs. HB 798 would radically transform Missouri’s income tax code into a system that privileges income from wealth over income from work, leaving many middle-income families to pay a higher income tax rate than wealthy people living off their investments.

map  

State Approaches to Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income (GILTI)

March 11, 2025 • By ITEP Staff

Many states with corporate income taxes include some amount of federally defined Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income (GILTI) in their tax bases. Twenty-one states plus D.C. include some amount of GILTI in their tax calculations in 2025.

map  

Revenue Effect of Mandatory Worldwide Combined Reporting by State

February 21, 2025 • By ITEP Staff

Universal adoption of mandatory worldwide combined reporting (WWCR) in states with corporate income taxes would boost state tax revenue by $18.7 billion per year. The revenue effects of mandatory WWCR would vary across states. We estimate that 38 states and the District of Columbia would experience revenue increases totaling $19.1 billion. The top 10 states […]

map  

Corporate Income Tax Filing Methods: States with Water’s Edge or Worldwide Combined Reporting

February 21, 2025 • By ITEP Staff

The purpose of state corporate income taxes is to tax the profit, or net income, an incorporated business earns in each state. Ascertaining the state where profits are earned is, however, complicated for companies that conduct business in multiple jurisdictions. Twenty-eight states plus D.C. now require a limited version of combined reporting called “water’s edge” […]

report  

A Revenue Analysis of Worldwide Combined Reporting in the States

February 20, 2025 • By Carl Davis, Matthew Gardner

Universal adoption of mandatory worldwide combined reporting would boost state corporate income tax revenues by roughly 14 percent. Thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia would experience revenue increases totaling $19.1 billion.

State Tax Watch 2025

January 28, 2025 • By ITEP Staff

ITEP tracks tax discussions in legislatures across the country and uses our unique data capacity to analyze the revenue, distributional, and racial and ethnic impacts of many of these proposals. State Tax Watch offers the latest news and movement from each state.

blog  

Louisiana Lawmakers Pass Deeply Regressive Tax Plan

November 26, 2024 • By Neva Butkus

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry called the legislature back to the capitol the day after the national election to take up his plan to overhaul the state’s tax system during a 20-day special session. Our analysis shows the tax overhaul would worsen the inequity already rampant in Louisiana’s tax system while potentially shortchanging essential services for families across the state.

blog  

2024 State Tax Ballot Questions: Voters to Weigh in on Tax Changes Big and Small

October 17, 2024 • By Jon Whiten

As we approach November’s election, voters in several states will be weighing in on tax policy changes. The outcomes will impact the equity of state and local tax systems and the adequacy of the revenue those systems are able to raise to fund public services.

blog  

Five Tax Takeaways from 2024 State Legislative Sessions 

July 18, 2024 • By Aidan Davis

Major tax cuts were largely rejected this year, but states continue to chip away at income taxes. And while property tax cuts were a hot topic across the country, many states failed to deliver effective solutions to affordability issues.

blog  

Five Things to Know About Tax Foundation’s Critique of Maryland’s Worldwide Combined Reporting Proposal

April 1, 2024 • By Carl Davis, Matthew Gardner

Maryland lawmakers are considering enacting worldwide combined reporting (WWCR), also known as complete reporting. This policy offers a more accurate, and less gameable, way to calculate the amount of profit subject to state corporate tax. Enacting WWCR in Maryland would represent a huge step toward eliminating state corporate tax avoidance as it neutralizes a wide […]

blog  

States Move to Tax the Top in 2024

March 20, 2024 • By Marco Guzman, Miles Trinidad

These forward-thinking states are demonstrating the wide variety of options for policymakers who want to raise more from the wealthiest people, rein in corporate tax avoidance, create fair tax codes and build strong communities.  

State Tax Watch 2024

January 23, 2024 • By ITEP Staff

Updated July 15, 2024 In 2024, state lawmakers have a choice: advance tax policy that improves equity and helps communities thrive, or push tax policies that disproportionately benefit the wealthy, drain funding for critical public services, and make it harder for low-income and working families to get ahead. Despite worsening state fiscal conditions, we expect […]

brief  

Far From Radical: State Corporate Income Taxes Already Often Look Beyond the Water’s Edge

November 7, 2023 • By Carl Davis, Matthew Gardner

State lawmakers are increasingly interested in reforming their corporate tax bases to start from a comprehensive measure of worldwide profit. This provides a more accurate, and less gameable, starting point for calculating profits subject to state corporate tax. Mandating this kind of filing system, known as worldwide combined reporting (WWCR), would be transformative, as it would all but eliminate state corporate tax avoidance done through the artificial shifting of profits into low-tax countries.

blog  

The Highs and Lows of 2023 State Legislative Sessions

July 7, 2023 • By Aidan Davis

Nearly one-third of states took steps to improve their tax systems this year by investing in people through refundable tax credits, and in a few notable cases by raising revenue from those most able to pay. But another third of states lost ground, continuing a trend of permanent tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit high-income households and make tax codes less adequate and equitable.

blog  

Minnesota’s Tax Battle of 2023 Signals a Turning of the Tide Against Corporate Tax Avoidance

July 7, 2023 • By Matthew Gardner

The qualified success of Minnesota’s GILTI conformity—to say nothing of the state’s serious dalliance with the game-changing worldwide combined reporting--sends a clear signal that the days may be coming to an end when big multinationals can scare state lawmakers into allowing them to game the tax system.

blog  

Minnesota Poised to Enact Landmark Loophole-Closing Corporate Tax Reforms

May 7, 2023 • By Matthew Gardner

With Minnesota poised to enact worldwide combined reporting of corporate income taxes, business lobbyists are pulling out all the stops to make state lawmakers believe the apocalypse is upon them.

blog  

Minnesota Lawmakers Re-Envision State Tax System to Center Equity

May 3, 2023 • By Neva Butkus

Minnesota’s House, Senate and Governor’s office have each proposed their own vision as to how the state should maximize its $17.5 billion surplus and raise new revenue, and these tax plans make one thing clear: Minnesota lawmakers are serious about using tax policy to advance tax equity and improve the lives of Minnesotans.

blog  

New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut Should Keep Corporate Taxes Strong, Extend Surcharges

February 28, 2023 • By Marco Guzman

At a time when corporations are seeing record profits while not paying their fair share of federal taxes, state corporate income taxes can and should play a role in raising sustainable revenue and adding progressivity to state tax codes. Right now, lawmakers in New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut have a unique opportunity to extend targeted tax changes that have raised billions of dollars from profitable corporations for meaningful public investments.

blog  

The Five Best Tax Ideas Coming from Governors This Year

February 22, 2023 • By Carl Davis

The word “tax” appears 97 times and counting in one recent summary of governors’ addresses to state legislators so far this year. The policy visions that governors are bringing, however, vary enormously. While there's good reason to worry about tax cuts for wealthy families and the flattening or elimination of income taxes, there are at least five great tax ideas coming directly out of governors’ offices this year.

blog  

Tax Foundation’s ‘State Business Tax Climate Index’ Bears Little Connection to Business Reality

October 31, 2022 • By Carl Davis, Matthew Gardner

The big problem with the Index is that it peddles a solution that not only falls short of the goal of generating business investment, but one that actively harms state lawmakers’ ability to provide the kinds of public goods – like good schools and modern, efficient transportation networks – that businesses need and want.

report  

A Simple Fix for a $17 Billion Loophole: How States Can Reclaim Revenue Lost to Tax Havens

January 17, 2019 • By Richard Phillips

Enacting Worldwide Combined Reporting or Complete Reporting in all states, this report calculates, would increase state tax revenue by $17.04 billion dollars. Of that total, $2.85 billion would be raised through domestic Combined Reporting improvements, and $14.19 billion would be raised by addressing offshore tax dodging (see Table 1). Enacting Combined Reporting and including known tax havens would result in $7.75 billion in annual tax revenue, $4.9 billion from income booked offshore.

blog  

How States Can Help Shut Down Tax Havens by Cracking Down on Profit Shifting

January 17, 2019 • By Richard Phillips

A core problem with our corporate income tax laws at the federal and state levels is that they allow companies to use accounting gimmicks to shift significant amounts of their profits into low or zero-tax jurisdictions. Federal lawmakers had an opportunity to address this with the 2017 tax law, but they failed to do so, and, in fact, the law may incentivize more offshore tax avoidance. State lawmakers, however, can buck the federal trend and crack down on profit shifting themselves.

blog  

Three Tax Takeaways on Amazon’s Expansion Announcement

November 13, 2018 • By Carl Davis

Today Amazon announced major expansions in New York and Virginia, where it intends to hire up to 50,000 full-time employees. The announcement marks the culmination of a highly publicized search that lasted more than a year and involved aggressive courting of the company by cities across the nation. The following are three tax-related observations on the announcement.

blog  

New Report Finds that Upside-down State and Local Tax Systems Persist, Contributing to Inequality in Most States

October 17, 2018 • By Aidan Davis

State and local tax systems in 45 states worsen income inequality by making incomes more unequal after taxes. The worst among these are identified in ITEP’s Terrible 10. Washington, Texas, Florida, South Dakota, Nevada, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Oklahoma, and Wyoming hold the dubious honor of having the most regressive state and local tax systems in the nation. These states ask far more of their lower- and middle-income residents than of their wealthiest taxpayers.

report  

ITEP Testimony “Regarding the Final Report of the Arkansas Tax Reform and Relief Legislative Task Force”

August 23, 2018 • By Lisa Christensen Gee

Read the testimony in PDF WRITTEN TESTIMONY SUBMITTED TO: THE ARKANSAS TAX REFORM AND RELIEF TASK FORCE Lisa Christensen Gree, Senior State Tax Policy Analyst Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Regarding the Final Report of the Arkansas Tax Reform and Relief Legislative Task Force August 22, 2018 Thank you for the opportunity to submit these […]

ITEP’s state corporate tax work examines the tax-paying habits of Fortune 500 corporations and corporate contributions to state revenue. It occasionally releases a comprehensive state corporate tax study as a companion to its national report on federal taxes paid (or not paid) by profitable corporations. ITEP also examines state tax incentives provided to corporations in exchange for the promise of economic growth.