State Corporate Taxes

We estimate that by 2032, QSBS will be costing states $1.1 billion a year, and since states must balance their budgets, that’s money they can’t use for public services.

An advertising tax offers a way to raise significant money from a sector of the economy that has been getting a free ride for decades.

North Carolina’s corporate tax cuts aren’t an incentive for economic growth. They’re a windfall for multinational companies that happen to sell into our state, regardless of whether they’ve made any meaningful investments here or not.

Most states questionably exempt advertising from sales taxes. States that extend their sales taxes to advertising and/or enact an excise tax stand to raise billions in revenue while correcting a structural bias in their tax codes that implicitly subsidizes some of the most profitable corporations in human history.

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.

FDDEI deductions should be repealed for policy reasons alone as they do not serve a legitimate purpose at the state level.

A new proposal in Michigan would create a 5-percentage point surcharge on top earners with taxable incomes over $1 million for joint filers and $500,000 for single filers. This would raise about $1.7 billion a year, which would be used for public education priorities.

The Trump administration’s Council of Economic Advisors suggests that states consider drastically raising sales taxes and using those new revenues to pay for repealing taxes on corporate and personal income. Working-class families would face dramatic tax increases while the nation’s wealthiest families would see their state tax bills plummet.

Download the Data Overview This historical dataset of state tax rates includes data on top personal income tax rates, top corporate income tax rates, and sales tax rates for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, back to the adoption of modern forms of state taxation at the start of the 20th century. The […]

Missouri lawmakers have been pushing regressive and shortsighted tax policies that undermine everyday workers and sabotage the Show-Me State’s ability to raise revenue.

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.

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.

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 […]

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” […]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 […]

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.  

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 […]

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.

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.

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.

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.