
Most states use the federal tax code as a starting point for their calculations of state personal income taxes, corporate income taxes, and estate taxes.
December 19, 2025 • By Zachary Sarver
Many states already recognize the potential of these credits to boost low- and moderate-income households. Other states should follow suit.
December 11, 2025 • By Nick Johnson
It’s wildly inappropriate for a U.S. Treasury Secretary to lean on states to adopt or not adopt specific federal provisions in their own state tax codes.
December 8, 2025 • By Neva Butkus, Galen Hendricks
State deductions for tips and overtime are not only ineffective at supporting working-class people, it will come at a substantial cost to state budgets.
November 25, 2025 • By Nick Johnson
An unknown number of workers who previously were assumed to be ineligible for the tax break may nonetheless claim it.
November 20, 2025 • 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.
November 12, 2025 • By Eli Byerly-Duke
The Opportunity Zones program benefits wealthy investors more than it benefits disadvantaged communities.
November 6, 2025 • By Nick Johnson, Sarah Austin
A costly tax break for wealthy venture capitalists is drawing some critical attention from state policymakers.
October 27, 2025 • By Nick Johnson, Michael Mazerov
States should immediately decouple from four costly corporate tax provisions in the new federal tax law.
This webinar focused on the ways the new tax law could impact state revenues by changing policies that state lawmakers will soon consider mirroring in their own income tax codes.
October 2, 2025 • By Sarah Austin, Nick Johnson
States should decouple from the federal Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) exemption.
August 21, 2025 • By ITEP Staff
The new tax law enacted last month found a temporary compromise on the level of the cap, boosting it to $40,000 through 2029, but failed to fix a loophole that allows some rich taxpayers with good accountants to completely avoid the cap
July 17, 2025 • By Dylan Grundman O'Neill, Nick Johnson
While a federal SALT cap is hotly debated, capping deductibility at $10,000 was an unambiguously good idea at the state level. States would be smart to stick with the current cap or, better yet, go even farther and repeal SALT deductions outright. Going along with a higher federal SALT cap would double down on a regressive tax cut that will mostly benefit a small number of relatively wealthy state residents and cost states significant revenue.
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.
March 25, 2025 • By Eli Byerly-Duke, Nick Johnson
Creating a special tax break for tipped income – as at least 20 states are considering this spring – would harm state budgets, encourage tax avoidance, and fail to reach the vast majority of low- and middle-income workers.