Corporate Taxes

Congress could use its taxing power to ensure a fairer distribution of the fruits of labor, innovation and investment, address the specific harms (the negative externalities) of AI specifically, and acquire a public stake in the companies that are driving the AI revolution.

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.

Microsoft avoided federal income tax on almost all of its U.S. income for fiscal year 2026. The company’s 2.44 percent federal tax rate on over $100 billion of U.S. income is largely attributable to tax breaks that were either created or expanded by Republican tax cuts enacted at the behest of President Donald Trump in 2017 and 2025.

Corporate tax disclosures reveal that five profitable airlines paid almost nothing in federal income tax last year. In 2025, the effective federal income tax rates of these airlines ranged from 1.07 percent to below zero.  

Many states have repeatedly cut top personal and corporate income tax rates in recent years, sometimes while approving increased sales tax rates to push tax systems in a more regressive direction. Other states, however, have charted a very different course and have moved to increase taxes on higher income households to fund public services.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen introduced legislation requiring big multinational corporations to tell shareholders and the public what they’re already telling tax authorities behind closed doors: how much income they’re booking in specific offshore tax havens and how little tax they’re paying to these jurisdictions.

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

Microsoft reports a huge share of its worldwide profit in low-tax Ireland and is achieving this despite having a very small share of its employees there. As other companies make similar disclosures between now and the end of calendar year 2026, investors and the public will likely get a much clearer sense of how much profit corporations are hiding offshore—and how much tax they’re avoiding by doing so.

This year several states raised income tax rates on high-income people to fund crucial services and make progress toward remedying the regressive tilt of their tax codes.

It's the first official week of summer, and while many of us are planning vacations, state lawmakers remain busy finalizing and debating tax proposals.

Corporate tax reforms could be more resilient than proposals to tax wealth or unrealized capital gains while achieving the same goal of more adequately taxing the income of billionaires.

If Juneteenth is to mean anything beyond symbolism, it must also be a call to confront the policies that continue to shape racial inequities today. One of the most powerful drivers of that inequity is our tax system.

A year after Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cut a swath of destruction through vital federal agencies including the Internal Revenue Service, Musk’s apparent antipathy toward the IRS suddenly makes more sense.  

As we head into summer, many state legislatures are in the final stretches of their sessions. Rhode Island moved another step closer to joining the ranks of Washington, Maine, and Hawai’i in enacting a new high-income surcharge this year.

ITEP’s report on taxing advertising identifies some reasons why states are curtailing longstanding sales tax exemptions for the ad sector.

As rising costs strain our community and household budgets, Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker’s proposed taxes attempted to patch gaping holes with meager solutions.

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.

A veritable superbloom of tax and budget policies occurred over these last few weeks, including both flowers worth admiring and weeds worth fighting back.

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.

The oil and gas industry has long been known for widespread tax avoidance. Now, thanks to new disclosure rules, we have a better picture of how this occurs.

Amazon received $17.5 billion in tax subsidies in 2025. That’s about 10% of all federal income tax subsidies for publicly traded corporations in 2025.

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) hosted a press briefing to discuss how federal lawmakers can build a resilient and progressive corporate income tax system. The briefing is tied to the release of ITEP’s new report, A Resilient Framework for Corporate Tax Reform.

Corporate tax reforms should be the backbone of any progressive tax agenda and should be counted on to remain if other changes to our tax code are later thwarted by any of the three branches of government.