Trump Tax Policies
GOP Megabill Breaks America’s Promise to Future Generations
July 10, 2025 • By Amy Hanauer
This country’s biggest historical challenge has been delivering this progress to all Americans, but Republicans have cut it back for everyone, retreating from many 20th century achievements in ways that will slam doors, rather than opening them, for the next generation.
There Were Far Cheaper and Fairer Options Than the Trump Megabill
July 8, 2025 • By ITEP Staff
Congress and the president could have spent less than half that much money on a tax bill that does more for working-class and middle-class households.
Analysis of Tax Provisions in the Trump Megabill as Signed into Law: National and State Level Estimates
July 7, 2025 • By Carl Davis, Jessica Vela, Joe Hughes, Steve Wamhoff
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.
Top 1% to Receive $1 Trillion Tax Cut from Trump Megabill Over the Next Decade
July 3, 2025 • By Carl Davis
The Trump megabill will give the top 1 percent tax cuts totaling $1.02 trillion over the next decade. For comparison, the bill’s cuts to the Medicaid health care program will total $930 billion over the same period.
The SALT Caucus, Fortunately, Comes Up Short
July 2, 2025 • By Michael Ettlinger
The endlessly debated cap on deductions for state and local taxes (SALT) has emerged in the GOP megabill largely unscathed—despite the efforts of Republican lawmakers from “blue” states. Those lawmakers are correct that the cap reduces the bill’s tax cuts for their wealthy constituents more than for those in other states. The megabill, however, is so loaded up with other provisions that result in a dramatic tax cut for the richest 1 percent in every state.
Megabill Takes Cap Off Unprecedented Private School Voucher Tax Credit, Potentially Raising Cost by Tens of Billions Relative to Earlier Version
July 2, 2025 • By Carl Davis
It is clear that this tax credit has the potential to come with an enormous cost if private school groups are successful in convincing their supporters to participate. In these times of very high debt and deficits, this is reason for all of us to be uneasy.
Trump Megabill Will Give $117 Billion in Tax Cuts to the Top 1% in 2026. How Much In Your State?
June 30, 2025 • By Michael Ettlinger
The predominant feature of the tax and spending bill working its way through Congress is a massive tax cut for the richest 1 percent — a $114 billion benefit to the wealthiest people in the country in 2026 alone.
How Much Do the Top 1% in Each State Get from the Trump Megabill?
June 30, 2025 • By Carl Davis
The Senate tax bill under debate right now would bring very large tax cuts to very high-income people. In total, the richest 1 percent would receive $114 billion in tax cuts next year alone. That would amount to nearly $61,000 for each of these affluent households.
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.
House Bill’s Deduction for Car Loan Interest Would Not Offset Tariff-Related Auto Price Increases for Most Buyers
June 12, 2025 • By Carl Davis, Sarah Austin
The auto loan interest deduction that recently passed the House is designed, at least in part, to mitigate the impact of tariff-induced price increases on vehicles assembled in America. But the deduction is incapable of offsetting even small-scale price increases, especially for working-class families and others with moderate incomes.
Musk-Trump Feud Shows Need to Tax the Rich
June 6, 2025 • By Amy Hanauer
Our tax policies enable people like Elon Musk and Donald Trump to accumulate more wealth than anyone could ever use in a lifetime. They then use it to steer elections and shape public policy to further enrich themselves and others like them. We should defeat the enormously destructive tax bill in Congress and instead craft tax policy that taxes the rich, makes our democracy more fair, and returns resources to the rest of the country.
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.
Trump’s Proposed Higher Tax Rate on the Richest Taxpayers Would Affect Very Little of Their Income
May 10, 2025 • By Carl Davis, Steve Wamhoff
President Donald Trump has proposed allowing the top rate to revert from 37 percent to 39.6 percent for taxable income greater than $5 million for married couples and $2.5 million for unmarried taxpayers. But many other special breaks in the tax code would ensure that most income of very well-off people would never be subject to Trump’s 39.6 percent tax rate.
Federal Tax Debate 2025
May 2, 2025 • 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 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.
Sharp Turn in Federal Policy Brings Significant Risks for State Tax Revenues
April 9, 2025 • By Carl Davis
Summary The new presidential administration and Congress have indicated that they intend to bring about a dramatic federal retreat in funding for health care, food assistance, education, and other services that will push more of the responsibility for providing these essential services to the states. Meeting these new obligations would be a challenging task for […]
Senate Republicans Rig Congressional Rules to Make Their Tax Cuts Appear Cost-Free
April 4, 2025 • By Steve Wamhoff
This week, members of Congress are arguing about whether extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts would cost trillions of dollars over a decade or cost nothing.
Why Americans Are Right to Be Unhappy About Corporate Tax Avoidance
March 26, 2025 • By Matthew Gardner
If lawmakers wanted to reduce income inequality and racial inequality, shutting down or at least limiting corporate tax breaks would be one option to achieve that goal. Unfortunately, President Trump and the current Congress show little interest in this and may even move in the opposite direction by introducing new corporate tax breaks.
Two Ways a 2025 Federal Tax Bill Could Worsen Income and Racial Inequality
March 26, 2025 • By Joe Hughes
Two parts of Trump’s 2017 tax law that are particularly expensive and beneficial to the richest individuals are the changes in income tax rates and brackets and the special deduction for “pass-through” business owners. Lawmakers should not extend these provisions for high-income households past the end of this year, when they are scheduled to expire.
Trump’s Address to Congress Obscures His Actual Tax Agenda
March 5, 2025 • By Amy Hanauer
In last night’s address to Congress, President Trump spent more time insulting Americans, lying, and bragging than he did talking about taxes. But regardless of what President Trump and Elon Musk talk about most loudly and angrily, there is one clear policy that they and the corporations and billionaires that support them will try hardest […]
House Budget Resolution Tees Up Damaging Trump Tax Agenda
February 26, 2025 • By Steve Wamhoff
The budget resolution passed by House Republicans will enrich the richest, blow up the deficit, and decimate vital public services. The budget resolution allows Congress to pass reconciliation legislation with $4.5 trillion in tax cuts that would mostly flow to the wealthiest families in the country. Congressional Republicans have no way to pay for the massive tax cuts promised by President Trump during his campaign other than to dismantle fundamental parts of the government and increase the federal budget deficit.
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.
Congress Could — But Won’t — Pass a Tax Package That Pays for Itself
January 17, 2025 • By Joe Hughes
If Republican lawmakers were serious about deficit-neutral tax reform, they would focus on increasing taxes for the ultra-wealthy and large corporations. The absence of such proposals in their plan reveals their true priority: delivering enormous tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans while average working families receive crumbs.
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.
Tax Justice in the Crosshairs
November 8, 2024 • By Amy Hanauer
Billionaires and businesses have too much power in Washington. Tax revenue is needed to pay for things we all need. If we want economic justice, racial justice and climate justice, we must have tax justice.
ITEP research is pivotal in explaining the effect of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and other Trump administration tax policy proposals at both the state and national levels, including how current law contributes to regressivity in the tax code and rising inequality.
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