Mississippi
A Windfall for the Wealthy: A Distributional Analysis of Mississippi HB 1
April 8, 2025 • By Aidan Davis, Dylan Grundman O'Neill, Neva Butkus
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.
Mississippi Considers Deep Tax Cuts Amidst Budget and Economic Uncertainty
February 26, 2025 • By Neva Butkus
At a time when states across the country are forecasting deficits or anticipating slowing revenue growth, Mississippi lawmakers are debating deeply regressive and expensive tax cuts that would overwhelmingly benefit their state’s richest residents.
Eliminating Income Taxes Would Be an Expensive Giveaway
March 20, 2024 • By Aidan Davis
Governors and legislative leaders in a dozen states have made calls to fully eliminate their taxes on personal or corporate income, after many states already deeply slashed them over the past few years. The public deserves to know the true impact of these plans, which would inevitably result in an outsized windfall to states’ richest taxpayers, more power in the hands of wealthy households and corporations, extreme cuts to basic public services, and more deeply inequitable state tax codes.
Mississippi: Who Pays? 7th Edition
January 9, 2024 • By ITEP Staff
Mississippi Download PDF All figures and charts show 2024 tax law in Mississippi, presented at 2023 income levels. Senior taxpayers are excluded for reasons detailed in the methodology. Our analysis includes nearly all (99.6 percent) state and local tax revenue collected in Mississippi. These figures depict Mississippi’s income tax rate at 4.7 percent. That rate […]
One Voice: Eliminating Individual Income Tax is Bad for Mississippi
February 7, 2022
House Bill 531 would eliminate the state individual income tax. Eliminating the income tax is bad for Mississippi, especially the state’s working families, communities of color, and retirees. While some lawmakers are suggesting that Mississippi’s revenue system is sound enough to support this tax cut, due to the current surplus, this couldn’t be further from […]
Mississippi Is the Latest in a String of States Pursuing Short-Sighted, Top-Heavy Tax Cuts
January 19, 2022 • By Kamolika Das
Not only is Mississippi's latest tax proposal deeply inequitable, the state simply cannot afford it.
Eliminating the State Income Tax Would Wreak Havoc on Mississippi
August 25, 2021 • By Kamolika Das
History has repeatedly shown that such policies harm state economies, dismantle basic public services, and exacerbate tax inequities.
One Voice: Who Pays, Mississippi? An Overview of State Tax Policy and Racial Equity Impacts
August 17, 2021
Historic and current injustices, both in public policy and in society more broadly, have resulted in vast disparities in income across race and ethnicity in Mississippi. State and local tax codes are not the sole contributors to, nor will they be the sole solution to, racial economic inequities. However, the state’s tax system is playing […]
One Voice Mississippi: Bill Analysis: House Bill 1439: Tax Proposal Moves State Away from a Better, More Equitable Mississippi
March 16, 2021
Mississippi’s House of Representatives recently passed House Bill 1439 (“the Mississippi Tax Freedom Act of 2021”). The House passed the 300-page bill less than 24 hours after they introduced it with little debate and no fiscal note. The plan revives the recurring attempts of some lawmakers to cut state income taxes, but does much more. […]
Trickle-Down Myths Swamp Tax Policy Debates in Mississippi and West Virginia
March 15, 2021 • By Aidan Davis
Recent proposals in both Mississippi and West Virginia seek to pare back, and ultimately eliminate, each state’s income tax while shifting the responsibility of funding services even more onto low- and middle-income taxpayers through increased consumption taxes. The states are moving forward with this tax experiment even though a similar experiment notoriously and immediately sent Kansas into a financial tailspin.
GOP Legacy on IRS Administration: Auditing Mississippi, not Microsoft
January 24, 2020 • By Matthew Gardner
Money doesn’t buy happiness—but it can buy immunity from the reach of Uncle Sam. The IRS is outgunned in cases against corporate giants because that’s how Republican leaders want it to be. They have systematically assaulted the agency’s enforcement capacity through decades of funding cuts. Instead of saving money, these cuts have cost billions: each dollar spent on the IRS results in several dollars of tax revenue collected.
Mississippi: Who Pays? 6th Edition
October 17, 2018 • By ITEP Staff
MISSISSIPPI Read as PDF MISSISSIPPI STATE AND LOCAL TAXES Taxes as Share of Family Income Top 20% Income Group Lowest 20% Second 20% Middle 20% Fourth 20% Next 15% Next 4% Top 1% Income Range Less than $16,100 $16,100 to $25,200 $25,200 to $43,600 $43,600 to $77,500 $77,500 to $162,200 $162,200 to $393,800 over $393,800 […]
Tax Cuts 2.0 – Mississippi
September 26, 2018 • By ITEP Staff
The $2 trillion 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) includes several provisions set to expire at the end of 2025. Now, GOP leaders have introduced a bill informally called “Tax Cuts 2.0” or “Tax Reform 2.0,” which would make the temporary provisions permanent. And they falsely claim that making these provisions permanent will benefit […]
How the Final GOP-Trump Tax Bill Would Affect Mississippi Residents’ Federal Taxes
December 16, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
The final tax bill that Republicans in Congress are poised to approve would provide most of its benefits to high-income households and foreign investors while raising taxes on many low- and middle-income Americans. The bill would go into effect in 2018 but the provisions directly affecting families and individuals would all expire after 2025, with […]
How the House and Senate Tax Bills Would Affect Mississippi Residents’ Federal Taxes
December 6, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
The House passed its “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” November 16th and the Senate passed its version December 2nd. Both bills would raise taxes on many low- and middle-income families in every state and provide the wealthiest Americans and foreign investors substantial tax cuts, while adding more than $1.4 trillion to the deficit over ten years. The graph below shows that both bills are skewed to the richest 1 percent of Mississippi residents.
How the Revised Senate Tax Bill Would Affect Mississippi Residents’ Federal Taxes
November 14, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
The Senate tax bill released last week would raise taxes on some families while bestowing immense benefits on wealthy Americans and foreign investors. In Mississippi, 45 percent of the federal tax cuts would go to the richest 5 percent of residents, and 10 percent of households would face a tax increase, once the bill is fully implemented.
State Rundown 11/8: Online Sales Tax Fight and Tax Subsidy Absurdity Go National
November 8, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
Internet sales tax fairness efforts gained momentum this week as most states joined together to encourage the US Supreme Court to allow them to collect taxes on online sales. Meanwhile, Montana lawmakers will enter special session next week to plug their revenue shortfall, Mississippi's (self-inflicted) revenue crunch is reaching unprecedented severity, and misguided corporate tax subsidies got mainstream attention from HBO's John Oliver and Rolling Stone.
How the House Tax Proposal Would Affect Mississippi Residents’ Federal Taxes
November 6, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was introduced on November 2 in the House of Representatives, includes some provisions that raise taxes and some that cut taxes, so the net effect for any particular family’s federal tax bill depends on their situation. Some of the provisions that benefit the middle class — like lower tax rates, an increased standard deduction, and a $300 tax credit for each adult in a household — are designed to expire or become less generous over time. Some of the provisions that benefit the wealthy, such as the reduction and eventual repeal of the estate…
GOP-Trump Tax Framework Would Provide Richest One Percent in Mississippi with 55.2 Percent of the State’s Tax Cuts
October 4, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
The “tax reform framework” released by the Trump administration and congressional Republican leaders on September 27 would not benefit everyone in Mississippi equally. The richest one percent of Mississippi residents would receive 55.2 percent of the tax cuts within the state under the framework in 2018. These households are projected to have an income of at least $404,300 next year. The framework would provide them an average tax cut of $42,060 in 2018, which would increase their income by an average of 3.6 percent.
In Mississippi 37.1 Percent of Trump’s Proposed Tax Cuts Go to People Making More than $1 Million
August 17, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
A tiny fraction of the Mississippi population (0.2 percent) earns more than $1 million annually. But this elite group would receive 37.1 percent of the tax cuts that go to Mississippi residents under the tax proposals from the Trump administration. A much larger group, 55.7 percent of the state, earns less than $45,000, but would receive just 6.3 percent of the tax cuts.
Hope Policy Institute: Mississippi’s Wealthiest Get the Most Benefit under New Federal Tax Cut Proposal
July 21, 2017
New research from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) looks at the potential effects of a tax cut proposal from the Trump Administration on families in the 50 states. The tax cut proposal would reduce the tax rate on corporate income from 35 percent to 15 percent, would repeal the estate tax, replace the current income tax brackets with three brackets at 10 percent, 25 percent, and 35 percent, eliminate most itemized deductions, except charitable giving and home mortgage interest, and create a new tax credit for childcare expenses, among other things.
Trump Tax Proposals Would Provide Richest One Percent in Mississippi with 47.8 Percent of the State’s Tax Cuts
July 20, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
Earlier this year, the Trump administration released some broadly outlined proposals to overhaul the federal tax code. Households in Mississippi would not benefit equally from these proposals. The richest one percent of the state’s taxpayers are projected to make an average income of $1,108,300 in 2018. They would receive 47.8 percent of the tax cuts that go to Mississippi’s residents and would enjoy an average cut of $62,390 in 2018 alone.
State Rundown 6/28: States Scramble to Finish Budgets Before July Deadlines
June 28, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
This week, several states attempt to wrap up their budget debates before new fiscal years (and holiday vacations) begin in July. Lawmakers reached at least short-term agreement on budgets in Alaska, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont, but such resolution remains elusive in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Wisconsin.
Hope Policy Institute: Everyone Pays Taxes, Including Undocumented Immigrants
March 21, 2017
According to a new report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), it is estimated that undocumented immigrants in Mississippi pay almost $22,684,000 in state and local taxes. Nationally, undocumented immigrants pay over $11.74 billion in state and local taxes. The report, entitled “Undocumented Immigrants’ State and Local Tax Contributions,” highlights the contributions of undocumented immigrants as taxpayers to state and local governments.
WTOK News Center: Mississippi tax code getting scrutiny
October 14, 2016
“But check out a chart from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. It’s all about state and local taxes. On one end is the lowest income families in the state. The wealthiest are at the other. The less you make, the bigger percentage of your income that’s going to taxes.” Read more
