Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP)

Trump Tax Policies

110 posts
report  

Impact of Key Trump Policies on Taxes and Costs: National and State Estimates

• By Steve Wamhoff

The major tax and economic policies of President Trump’s second term have increased taxes and household costs for most Americans except the richest 1%.

blog  

Big Tech Is Raking in Enormous Tax Breaks for AI Development

• By Matthew Gardner

OBBBA’s expensing provision is becoming especially lucrative for the companies building out AI infrastructure right now. There is no evidence whatsoever that tax breaks are necessary to encourage their construction.

blog  

New Census Data Show Importance of Refundable Tax Credits and Need for Improvements

• By Joe Hughes

The Child Tax Credit actually moved fewer children out of poverty in 2025 than it did in 2024 prior to Congress passing the so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (OBBBA).

blog  

The Biggest Winners from Trump’s Tariff Refunds are Big Corporations

• By Matthew Gardner

The Trump administration has been forced to pay out over $100 billion from illegal tariffs, and the biggest winners from these tariff refunds have been big corporations.

brief  

The Impact of Proposed New Tax Credit Restrictions for Immigrant Filers: An Updated Analysis of the DACA Recipient Population

• By Carl Davis, Erika Frankel, Emma Sifre

New Treasury Department public regulations would drastically reduce tax credit claims by DACA recipients and their families, among others. We find that 158,000 people in households with at least one DACA recipient will suffer financial harm, and that more than half of the impacted individuals are U.S. citizens.

blog  

The Trump Administration Slashed Taxes for H&R Block and Raised Costs for Tax Filers

• By Joe Hughes

Tax-prep giant H&R Block paid no federal taxes on its U.S. income in 2025. It also made a public disclosure, required by the European Union, characterizing one-third of its global profits as earned in Ireland, a low-tax country where the company offers no tax services and has only 15 employees.

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Five Things to Know About the Trump Administration’s New Effort to Deny Tax Credits to Lawfully Present Immigrants

• By Carl Davis

Today the Trump administration proposed new regulations seeking to drastically reduce the tax credits that certain immigrant tax filers can claim. The affected credits include the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Additional Child Tax Credit, American Opportunity Tax Credit, and the Adoption Tax Credit. 

blog  

Trump Weighs Another Giveaway to the Wealthy With Capital Gains Indexing Ahead of Midterms

• By Jon Whiten

Trump is once again weighing a proposal to index capital gains taxes to inflation as part of a set of policy promises ahead of the midterm elections. It would amount to a massive new tax break for wealthy investors.

blog  

Trump Says Exxon and Chevron Are Ripping Off Americans, But His Own Policies Are to Blame

• By Matthew Gardner

President Trump lashed out at ExxonMobil and Chevron for “making too much money." These companies are reporting enormous profits right now, partly the result of Trump’s war in Iran but also due to the corporate tax policies he's passed during his time in office.

blog  

Trump Administration Says Shining Light on Corporate Tax Avoidance is ‘Very Dangerous’

• By Matthew Gardner

Administration officials appear far more concerned about the public knowing too much about how U.S. corporations shift their income into offshore tax havens.

brief  

The Impact of Proposed New Tax Credit Restrictions for Immigrant Filers: An Analysis of the DACA Recipient Population

• By Carl Davis, Erika Frankel, Emma Sifre

We find that 337,000 people in households with at least one DACA recipient will suffer financial harm, and that nearly two-thirds (66 percent) of the impacted individuals are U.S. citizens.

brief  

The Impact of Proposed New Tax Credit Restrictions for Immigrant Filers: An Analysis of State EITCs

• By Neva Butkus

Immigrants and their families in as many as 30 states are at risk of seeing their state tax credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC) reduced unless state lawmakers act.

blog  

Amidst Soaring Tech Earnings, Meta and Qualcomm Disclose a $13.7 Billion Tax Gift from Trump Administration

• By Matthew Gardner

Both companies acknowledge that they will save billions because of the Trump administration's weakening of the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax (CAMT). Meta and Qualcomm are just two of the corporations that will benefit from this corporate tax cut provided unilaterally by the Trump's Treasury Department.

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While States Debate New Trump Tax Changes, Equity Must Be at the Core

• By Brakeyshia Samms

States continue to debate whether and how to link their state tax codes to the 2025 federal tax law. This is not just a technical debate.

blog  

Despite Any Refunds, You’re Probably Paying More Taxes Under Trump While Richest Pay Less

• By Steve Wamhoff

For a large majority of Americans, the tax increase resulting from Trump’s tariffs, along with the ending of the health care tax credits, more than offsets any tax cuts provided by OBBBA. The exception is the richest 5 percent of Americans, for whom the net result is a tax cut on average.

report  

Year One of Trump-Republican Tax Policy: The Consequences

• By Michael Ettlinger

President Trump has dramatically increased tariff taxes, enacted large tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy and corporations, dramatically curtailed IRS enforcement, and issued legally problematic regulations.

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How Four Big Pro-Trump Tech Companies Avoided Taxes

• By Steve Wamhoff, Matthew Gardner

The leaders of Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Tesla publicly supported Trump to ensure the most favorable corporate tax policies possible. And Trump delivered for them, both in his 2017 tax bill and again in 2025 with the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

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The Child Tax Credit Leaves Out Millions of Children in 2026. There Are Better Alternatives.

• By Joe Hughes

The 2025 Trump tax law slightly increased the Child Tax Credit in a way that benefits virtually none of the children who most need help.

blog  

Cheniere Energy Gets $380 Million Gift from Trump’s Treasury Department

• By Matthew Gardner

Cheniere Energy's latest annual financial report shows the company reaped a cool $380 million in tax cuts from a single regulatory change made by the Trump administration last fall.

blog  

Nvidia’s Tax Bill Shows It’s Not Just Zero-Tax Corporations That Hurt Our Budget Deficit the Most

• By Matthew Gardner

Semiconductor giant Nvidia reported avoiding $6.8 billion in federal income taxes last year. The company did this in a year when it reported greater earnings growth than almost any corporation in history, with U.S. pretax income coming in at an astonishing $123 billion.

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State-by-State Estimates of the First Year of Trump’s Tax Policies: All But the Richest Americans Face Higher Taxes

• By Steve Wamhoff, Michael Ettlinger

As a result of the tax policies approved by President Trump and the Republican majority in Congress, all but the richest Americans are paying higher taxes on average in 2026 than they did last year.

blog  

Despite a Supreme Court Victory for Middle-Class Americans, Trump’s Disastrous Tariff Policies Are Not Over

• By Steve Wamhoff

Today the Supreme Court made the right decision in striking down most of the tariffs President Trump has put into motion during his second term.

blog  

Trump Administration Provides Biggest Illegal Tax Cuts Yet for Billion-Dollar Corporations

• By Amy Hanauer

The Treasury Department is unilaterally cutting corporate taxes with regulations that ignore the statute they claim to implement, disregarding the separation of powers between the branches of government that has defined how America works for more than two centuries.

blog  

2025: The Year in Tax Policy

• By ITEP Staff

From Congressional discussions over the so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" to debates on property taxes, ITEP kept busy this year analyzing tax proposals and showing Americans across the country how tax decisions affect them.

brief  

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.

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.