Tax Analyses
Analysis of Tax Provisions in the Senate Reconciliation Bill: National and State Level Estimates
June 25, 2025 • By Carl Davis, Jessica Vela, Joe Hughes, Steve Wamhoff
Compared to its House counterpart, the Senate bill makes certain tax provisions more generous, including corporate tax breaks that it makes permanent rather than temporary. But the bottom line for both is the same. Both bills give more tax cuts to the richest 1 percent than to the entire bottom 60 percent of Americans, and both bills particularly favor high-income people living in more conservative states.
Analysis of Tax Provisions in the House Reconciliation Bill: National and State Level Estimates
May 22, 2025 • 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.
The House Tax Plan, By the Numbers
May 16, 2025 • By Carl Davis
The House of Representatives unveiled a sprawling piece of tax legislation earlier this week that would extend temporary tax changes enacted in 2017 and layer various kinds of tax cuts and increases on top. The JCT analysis makes clear that the House tax plan would be regressive, meaning it would offer larger tax cuts as a share of income to high-income taxpayers than to either middle-class or working-class families. It also makes clear that most of the tax cuts would go to families with above-average incomes.
The Impact of Trump’s Tariffs
April 23, 2025 • By ITEP Staff
The tariffs proposed by Donald Trump, which are far larger than any on the books today, would significantly raise the prices faced by American consumers across the income scale.
Different Approaches to the Trump Tax Law’s Cap on Deductions for State and Local Taxes (SALT)
January 17, 2025 • By Steve Wamhoff
President Trump and the Republican majorities in the House and Senate may not extend the $10,000 cap on federal income tax deductions for state and local taxes (SALT), the one part of the 2017 law that significantly limits tax breaks for the rich. And, depending on which proposal they settle on, leaving out the existing cap on SALT deductions could add between $10 billion and over $100 billion each year to the total cost of their tax plan.
Trump’s Plan to Extend His 2017 Tax Provisions: Updated National and State-by-State Estimates
January 8, 2025 • 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.
How Would the Harris and Trump Tax Plans Affect Different Income Groups?
October 23, 2024 • By Jon Whiten
Presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have put forward a wide range of different tax proposals during this year’s campaign. We have now fully analyzed the distributional impacts of the major proposals of both Vice President Harris and former President Trump in separate analyses. In all, the tax proposals announced by Harris would, on average, lead to a tax cut for all income groups except the richest 1 percent of Americans, while the proposals announced by Trump would, on average, lead to a tax increase for all income groups except the richest 5 percent of Americans.
A Distributional Analysis of Kamala Harris’ Tax Plan
October 23, 2024 • By Steve Wamhoff
The tax proposals from Vice President Kamala Harris would, on average, lead to a tax increase for the richest 1 percent of Americans and a tax cut for all other income groups.
A Distributional Analysis of Donald Trump’s Tax Plan
October 7, 2024 • By Carl Davis, Erika Frankel, Galen Hendricks, Joe Hughes, Matthew Gardner, Michael Ettlinger, Steve Wamhoff
Former President Donald Trump has proposed a wide variety of tax policy changes. Taken together, these proposals would, on average, lead to a tax cut for the richest 5 percent of Americans and a tax increase for all other income groups.
Extending Temporary Provisions of the 2017 Trump Tax Law: Updated National and State-by-State Estimates
September 13, 2024 • 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 […]
Voucher Boondoggle: House Advances Plan to Give the Wealthy $1.20 for Every $1 They Steer to Private K-12 Schools
September 12, 2024 • By Carl Davis
The U.S. House Ways & Means Committee has advanced a new school voucher bill. H.R. 9462—the Educational Choice for Children Act of 2024—would create an unprecedented tax incentive designed to fund private, mostly religious, K-12 schools.
House SALT Proposal is Expensive, Unneeded, and Poorly Designed
February 2, 2024 • By Joe Hughes
The SALT Marriage Penalty Elimination Act passed by the House Rules Committee on February 1 is costly, decreasing tax revenue by about $8 billion in 2023. It also mostly only helps taxpayers who are already well off.
Weakening the SALT Cap Would Make House Tax Package More Expensive and More Tilted in Favor of the Wealthiest
August 7, 2023 • By Steve Wamhoff
The three tax bills that cleared the House Ways and Means Committee in June are reportedly stalled due to some House Republicans’ demands that the package include provisions weakening the $10,000 cap on deductions for state and local taxes (SALT). Modifying the House tax package in this way would make it much more expensive while benefiting the richest fifth of taxpayers almost exclusively.
‘Fair Share Act’ Would Strengthen Medicare and Social Security Taxes
July 11, 2023 • By Joe Hughes, Steve Wamhoff
The Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act would reform the taxes that Americans pay to finance these two important programs so that the richest 2 percent of Americans pay these taxes on most of their income the way that middle-class taxpayers already do.
Trio of GOP Tax Bills Would Expand Corporate Tax Breaks While Doing Little for Americans Who Most Need Help
June 11, 2023 • By Steve Wamhoff
The trio of tax bills that cleared the House Ways and Means Committee in June include tax cuts that would mostly benefit the richest one percent of Americans and foreign investors.
What Tax Provisions are in the Senate-Passed Inflation Reduction Act?
August 9, 2022 • By Steve Wamhoff
The Inflation Reduction Act approved by the Senate on Aug. 7 would raise more than $700 billion in new revenue over a decade by closing corporate tax loopholes, empowering the IRS to enforce the tax laws on the books, taxing stock buybacks, and extending a limitation on deductions for business losses. The IRA – if […]
State-by-State Estimates of Sen. Rick Scott’s “Skin in the Game” Proposal
March 7, 2022 • By Steve Wamhoff
A proposal from Sen. Rick Scott would increase taxes for more than 35% of Americans, with the poorest fifth of Americans paying 34% of the tax increase.
Repealing the SALT Cap Would Wipe Out Revenue Raised by the House Ways and Means Bill’s Income Tax Provisions
September 23, 2021 • By Steve Wamhoff
There are several ways that the House leadership could avoid this problem. One approach is for lawmakers to replace the SALT cap with a different kind of limit on tax breaks for the rich that actually raises revenue and avoids disfavoring some states compared to others as the SALT cap does. ITEP has suggested a way to do this.
New ITEP Report Examines the Tax Changes in the House Ways and Means Build Back Better Bill
September 21, 2021 • By Steve Wamhoff
The vast majority of these tax increases would be paid by the richest 1 percent of Americans and foreign investors. The bill’s most significant tax cuts -- expansions of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) -- would more than offset the tax increases for the average taxpayer in all income groups except for the richest 5 percent.
Tax Changes in the House Ways and Means Committee Build Back Better Bill
September 21, 2021 • By ITEP Staff, Matthew Gardner, Steve Wamhoff
This report finds that the vast majority of these tax increases would be paid by the richest 1 percent of Americans and foreign investors. The bill’s most significant tax cuts -- expansions of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) -- would more than offset the tax increases for the average taxpayer in all income groups except for the richest 5 percent.
House Ways and Means Provisions to Raise Revenue Would Significantly Improve Our Tax System But Fall Short of the President’s Plan
September 15, 2021 • By Steve Wamhoff
High-income people and corporations would pay more than they do today, which is a monumental change. But some wealthy billionaires like Jeff Bezos would continue to pay an effective rate of zero percent on most of their income, and American corporations would still have some incentives to shift profits offshore.
Options to Reduce the Revenue Loss from Adjusting the SALT Cap
August 26, 2021 • By Carl Davis, ITEP Staff, Matthew Gardner, Steve Wamhoff
If lawmakers are unwilling to replace the SALT cap with a new limit on tax breaks that raises revenue, then any modification they make to the cap in the current environment will lose revenue and make the federal tax code less progressive. Given this, lawmakers should choose a policy option that loses as little revenue as possible and that does the smallest amount of damage possible to the progressivity of the federal tax code.
Child Tax Credit Is a Critical Component of Biden Administration’s Recovery Package
June 11, 2021 • By Aidan Davis
Nearly one in seven children in the United States live in poverty and about 6 percent of all children live in deep poverty. President Joe Biden’s American Families Plan would tackle child poverty in an immediate, meaningful way. It is expected to extend the one-year Child Tax Credit (CTC) enhancements included in the March 2021 American Rescue Plan (ARP) through 2025. Next year alone, this would provide around a $110 billion collective income boost to roughly 88 percent of children in the United States.
Effects of the President’s Capital Gains and Dividends Tax Proposals by State
May 6, 2021 • By ITEP Staff, Matthew Gardner, Steve Wamhoff
President Biden’s proposal to eliminate the lower income tax rate on capital gains (profits from selling assets) and stock dividends for millionaires would affect less than half of one percent (0.4 percent) of U.S. taxpayers if it goes into effect in 2022. The share of taxpayers affected would be less than 1 percent in every state.
SALT Cap Repeal Would Worsen Racial Income and Wealth Divides
April 20, 2021 • By Carl Davis, ITEP Staff, Jessica Schieder
A bipartisan group of 32 House lawmakers banded together to form the “SALT Caucus,” demanding elimination of the SALT cap. None of their arguments in favor of repeal change the fact that it would primarily benefit the rich and, according to new research, exacerbate racial income and wealth disparities.
ITEP staff uses the ITEP Microsimulation model to produce quantitative analyses of current and proposed federal tax policies, creating distributional analyses (analyzing the effect on taxpayers according to their income group), producing revenue estimates (how much a tax policy would affect annual federal revenue collection), and even breaking down the impact of federal policies on each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Institute on Taxation
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.
Subscribe to ITEP Emails
Tax research and policy news in your inbox.
Promote Fair Tax Policy
Your gift to ITEP promotes tax justice. With your help, we do research that supports taxing millionaires and billionaires, taxing big corporations and raising revenue for the things our people, our communities and our planet need.
Together, we can create a country with more economic justice, more racial justice, more climate justice… and more tax justice.