Mississippi

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.

Revenue forecasts look increasingly grim as states anticipate shortfalls due to the slowing economy and impacts of the new federal tax law.

The Opportunity Zones program benefits wealthy investors more than it benefits disadvantaged communities.

The progressivity of the federal tax code has been waning. State and local policymakers should respond by protecting their revenue bases, promoting equity, and safeguarding vulnerable communities from harmful budget cuts. 

A costly tax break for wealthy venture capitalists is drawing some critical attention from state policymakers.

States across the nation are debating how best to respond to costly new federal tax cuts.

Contact: Jon Whiten (ITEP) [email protected] A new analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) reveals that five states—Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Oklahoma—enacted the most significant income tax cuts for millionaires in 2025, collectively reducing state revenues by more than $800 million in 2026 and an estimated $2.2 billion a year once […]

Some states continue to hand out huge tax cuts to millionaires. The five largest tax cuts this year will cost states a total of $2.2 billion per year once fully implemented.

States should decouple from the federal Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) exemption.

The Trump megabill hands the richest 1% a trillion-dollar windfall while gutting funding for health care, education, and disaster relief — leaving communities to pick up the pieces. State and local leaders must step up, tax the wealthiest fairly, and safeguard the essentials that keep America healthy, educated, and safe.

Mississippi policymakers this year took a big step to worsen the state’s racial income and wealth divides by passing a radical plan to eventually eliminate the state’s income tax.

Federal policy choices on tariffs, taxes, and spending cuts will be deeply felt by all states, which will have less money available to fund key priorities. This year some states raised revenue to ensure that their coffers were well-funded, some proceeded with warranted caution, and many others passed large regressive tax cuts that pile on to the massive tax cuts the wealthiest just received under the federal megabill.

Sales tax holidays are often marketed as relief for everyday families, but they do little to address the deeper inequities of regressive sales taxes. In 2025, 18 states offer these holidays at a collective cost of $1.3 billion.

If instead of giving $117 billion to the richest 1 percent, that money had been evenly divided among all Americans, we'd each get $343 - or nearly $1,400 for a family of four.

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.

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.

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.

Given this environment, local leaders must do what they can to preserve and strengthen progressive revenue tools, advocate for expanded local taxing authorities and flexibility, and push their state leaders to decouple from harmful federal tax changes.

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.

Want to know more about the tax and spending megabill that President Trump recently signed into law? We've got you covered.

Attempts by the Department of Homeland Security to secure private information from the IRS on people who file taxes with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number is a violation of federal privacy laws that protect taxpayers. It is also a change that could seriously damage public trust in the IRS, which could jeopardize billions of dollars in tax payments by hardworking immigrant families.

Mississippi lawmakers have approved the most radical and costly change to the state’s personal income tax system to date. House Bill 1 ultimately eliminates the state's personal income tax and cuts state revenues by nearly $2.7 billion a year when fully implemented. This deeply regressive legislation will create a windfall for the wealthiest residents of the poorest state in the nation while simultaneously jeopardizing the state’s ability to fund public services that support Mississippians and the state’s economy.

While all eyes are on the Trump administration’s tariffs on foreign imports, state lawmakers are moving forward with a mix of deep, regressive tax cuts and progressive revenue raisers.