
The IRS has opened its free tax filing service called Direct File to every state for the 2025 tax filing season. Direct File was made possible by President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which provided new resources for the IRS to improve customer service and ensure taxpayers claim the benefits and deductions for which they are […]
Many cities, counties, and townships across the country are in a difficult, or at least unstable, budgetary position. Localities are responding to these financial pressures in a variety of ways with some charging ahead with enacting innovative reforms like short-term rental and vacancy taxes, and others setting up local tax commissions to study the problem.
August 8, 2024 • By ITEP Staff
Whether they’re in a special session, gearing up for one, or prepping for 2025, states around the country are focusing on important tax fights...
August 7, 2024
It’s been nearly 24 hours since Kamala Harris announced Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota as her running mate, catapulting him into the national spotlight. Unlike other candidates for the position, including Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, the Midwestern politician hasn’t been closely scrutinized — until now. Here’s where he stands on some key business issues.
August 6, 2024 • By Marco Guzman
Nineteen states have sales tax holidays on the books in 2024. These suspensions combined will cost states and localities over $1.3 billion in lost revenue this year. Sales tax holidays are poorly targeted and too temporary to meaningfully change the regressive nature of a state’s tax system.
Undocumented immigrants pay taxes that help fund public infrastructure, institutions, and services in every U.S. state. Nearly 39 percent of the total tax dollars paid by undocumented immigrants in 2022 ($37.3 billion) went to state and local governments.
July 30, 2024 • By ITEP Staff
Contact: Jon Whiten ([email protected]) Immigration policies have taken center stage in public debates this year, but much of the conversation has been driven by emotion, not data. A new in-depth study from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy aims to help change that by quantifying how much undocumented immigrants pay in taxes – both […]
Undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022. Providing access to work authorization for undocumented immigrants would increase their tax contributions both because their wages would rise and because their rates of tax compliance would increase.
Four states expanded or boosted refundable tax credits for children and families, and the District of Columbia is poised to create a new Child Tax Credit. These actions — in Colorado, Illinois, New York, Utah, and D.C. — continue the recent trend of improving the well-being of children and families with refundable tax credits.
Major tax cuts were largely rejected this year, but states continue to chip away at income taxes. And while property tax cuts were a hot topic across the country, many states failed to deliver effective solutions to affordability issues.
July 17, 2024 • By Emma Sifre, Marco Guzman
Undocumented immigrants who work and pay taxes but don't have a valid Social Security number for either themselves or their children are excluded from federal EITC and CTC benefits. Fortunately, several states have stepped in to ensure undocumented immigrants are not left behind by the gaps in the federal EITC and CTC. State lawmakers should continue to ensure that immigrants who are otherwise eligible for these tax credits receive them.
July 16, 2024 • By Emma Sifre, Steve Wamhoff
Corporate tax cuts and corporate tax avoidance worsen income and racial inequality in our country. Most of the benefits flow to foreign investors and the richest 20% of Americans.
June 27, 2024
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, whose liberal state has been hammered by Republicans for months as a hellscape of homelessness, crime and high taxes, used his annual State of the State address on Tuesday to slam “conservatives and delusional California bashers” and defend “the California way of life.”
June 26, 2024 • By Carl Davis, Erika Frankel
The report was produced in partnership with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and co-authored by CBPP’s Deputy Director of State Policy Research Samantha Waxman.[1] Click here to use our State Mansion Tax Estimator A historically large share of the nation’s wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, a reality glaring in […]
June 24, 2024 • By Brakeyshia Samms
Well-designed property tax circuit breaker programs allow states to reduce the impact that property taxes have on the upside-down tilt of their tax codes.
June 21, 2024
For years, liberal Democrats have agitated for the United States to tax wealth, not just income, as a way to ensure that rich Americans who derive wealth from real estate, stocks, bonds and other assets were paying more in taxes. On Thursday, that dream survived a Supreme Court scare, but just barely.
June 13, 2024 • By ITEP Staff
State budgets are falling into place as lawmakers near the end of their legislative sessions...
This week, it was the best of times or, in some cases, the worst of times for tax policy in two different states...
May 30, 2024 • By Jon Whiten
While there is plenty of room to expand Direct File at the federal level, states can take matters into their own hands and bring this benefit to their residents by opting into the program.
There are a variety of factors that affect teacher pay. But one often overlooked factor is progressive tax policies that allow states to raise and provide the funding educators and their students deserve.
Many state legislative sessions are wrapping up...
April 11, 2024 • By ITEP Staff
State and local tax codes can do a lot to reduce inequality. But they add to the nation’s growing income inequality problem when they capture a greater share of income from low- or moderate-income taxpayers. These regressive tax codes also result in higher tax rates on communities of color, further worsening racial income and wealth divides.
April 10, 2024 • By Andrew Boardman
This tax season more than 800,000 households in New York City, Maryland's Montgomery County, and San Francisco are set to receive a boost through local refundable EITCs. These credits put dollars directly into the pockets of low-income households, equipping families with resources to better make ends meet and invest in their futures. In turn, they can help build stronger, fairer, and more resilient communities.
America's tax system is just barely progressive, and not nearly as progressive as many suggest or as progressive as it could be. There is plenty of room for lawmakers to improve the progressivity of the tax code to combat economic, wealth, and racial inequality.
April 3, 2024 • By ITEP Staff
This week tax cuts were debated across the upper Midwest...