Recent Work by ITEP
State Rundown 8/20: States to Face Serious Conformity, Revenue Issues as Summer Ends
August 20, 2025 • By ITEP Staff
While tax news has slowed as summer comes to an end, there are rumblings beneath the surface that could be an inauspicious sign of the times ahead for states and state budgets.
Trump Administration’s English-Only IRS Would Undermine Public Trust and Boost Budget Deficits
August 19, 2025 • By Matthew Gardner
The Trump administration’s push to make English the official U.S. language threatens decades of progress in taxpayer services for non-English speakers, risking cuts to IRS multilingual support, harder tax filing, lower compliance, and an undermined agency mission.
Trump’s Tax Law Clobbers State Budgets. Now’s the Time to Prepare.
August 13, 2025 • By Amy Hanauer
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’s Path to Income Tax Elimination Hinders Racial and Economic Equity
August 7, 2025 • By Vanessa Woods
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.
How Maryland’s Tax Reforms Advance Racial and Economic Equity
August 7, 2025 • By Vanessa Woods
Maryland is taking aim at income and racial disparities through a revised personal income tax. By raising taxes on high earners and cutting them for most households across racial and ethnic lines, the state is proving that progressive tax policy can drive both equity and revenue.
Trump’s Firing of BLS Commissioner is Part of Larger Erosion of Federal Data Infrastructure
August 7, 2025 • By Emma Sifre
Last week, President Trump fired the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in apparent retaliation for weak jobs numbers. The move drew sharp criticism for spooking investors and weakening trust in official data. But it also reflects a deeper problem: the ongoing erosion of the federal data infrastructure.
As states prepare for the revenue loss and disruption resulting from the federal tax bill, tax policy is being considered in legislatures across the country.
The Child Tax Credit (CTC) is an important tool to fight child poverty and help families make ends meet. When designed well, it can also make tax systems less regressive. As of 2020, only six states had CTCs. Today, 15 states have CTCs, with many credits exceeding $1,000 per qualifying child.
Excessive CEO Pay Makes Inequality Worse. Shareholders and the Public Deserve to Know About Compensation Disparities
July 30, 2025 • By Matthew Gardner
Huge executive pay packages are a prime driver of income inequality. Shareholders and the public deserve to know about how CEOs are compensated, but new SEC leadership seems to think otherwise.
State Tax Action in 2025: Amid Uncertainty, Tax Cuts and New Revenue
July 28, 2025 • By Aidan Davis, Neva Butkus, Marco Guzman
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.
ITEP in the News
CNN: Why Trump Is Speaking Like a Democrat About Obamacare
The Associated Press: FACT FOCUS: Trump Says Tariffs Can Eventually Replace Federal Income Taxes. Experts Disagree
Newsweek: Republican Governor to Propose Scrapping Income Tax
PBS/NPR Southwest Florida: Eliminating Property Taxes Would Make Florida’s ‘Worst in the U.S.’ Regressive System Even Worse
Washington Post: Corporations To Claim $16B From Retroactive GOP Tax Break, Federal Report Says
ITEP Work in Action
Kentucky Center for Economic Policy: Building a Kentucky Workers Can Afford
Action Center on Race & the Economy: Pay Us What You Owe Us: Concrete State Solutions to Re-Fund Our Communities
Institute for Policy Studies: FACT SHEET: Federal Policy Threatens Women and Children with Poverty
Georgia Budget and Policy Institute: Breaking the Bank: Eliminating the State Income Tax Harms Most Georgians and Increases the Cost of Living
Economic Policy Institute: Raising Taxes on the Ultrarich
Institute on Taxation
and Economic Policy
ITEP is a non-profit, non-partisan tax policy organization. We conduct rigorous analyses of tax and economic proposals and provide data-driven recommendations to shape equitable and sustainable tax systems.
Subscribe to ITEP Emails
Tax research and policy news in your inbox.
Promote Fair Tax Policy
Your gift to ITEP promotes tax justice. With your help, we do research that supports taxing millionaires and billionaires, taxing big corporations and raising revenue for the things our people, our communities and our planet need.
Together, we can create a country with more economic justice, more racial justice, more climate justice… and more tax justice.