Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP)

Recent Work

2178 items
State Rundown 4/1: No Fooling Around Anymore in Washington, But Cruel Pranks in South Carolina

In Washington, Gov. Bob Ferguson and lawmakers decided to stop fooling around with one of the nation’s most upside-down tax codes and finally brought to life a new millionaires’ tax, the first new income tax created in a state since 1991.

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Low Tax for Whom? California vs Texas

April 1, 2026 • By Cassidy Sheppard

Low Tax for Whom? California vs Texas

California Gov. Gavin Newsom went to Texas recently and claimed: “Texas taxes poor folks more than we tax our richest." He’s right.

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South Carolina’s Expensive, Regressive Tax Law Will Eliminate State’s Income Tax

March 31, 2026 • By Neva Butkus, Dylan Grundman O'Neill

South Carolina’s Expensive, Regressive Tax Law Will Eliminate State’s Income Tax

South Carolina signed into law a regressive tax cut that will disproportionately benefit the state’s highest-income residents while simultaneously jeopardizing the state’s ability to pay for basic public services in the years to come.

Travelers’ Checks: How to Tax Tourists in States and Localities

Taxing tourists is a relatively efficient way to ensure that visitors are paying a share of essential government services. Places with a modest number of tourists should limit general sales tax rates to minimize the effect on the full-time population. Places with higher proportions of tourists may have higher sales tax rates to better capture the economic behavior of tourists.

The Progress of Tax Policy: Q&A With Vanessa Williamson, Author of ‘The Price of Democracy’

Williamson speaks about why tax politics has long been tied to questions of democratic inclusion, what history can teach us about today’s tax debates, and how tax policy shapes the future of American democracy.

State Rundown 3/26: Sobering Revenue Projections Keep States on Their Toes

This week, troubling revenue projections are making headlines, with many lawmakers scrambling to determine how the tax changes at the federal level, plus price hikes driven by national policy decisions, will impact their states.

How to Make the Rich and Corporations Pay for This Unpopular War

The war is widely unpopular. Whether the cost of the war ends up being $200 billion, more than that amount, or less, let’s at least have it paid for by those who can most afford it.

States Like Missouri Are Seeking to Raise Taxes on the Working Class to Cut Taxes for the Rich

A proposal to replace the Missouri personal income tax with a higher sales tax would increase costs for low- and middle-income households while giving the richest Missourians an average annual tax cut of almost $40,000.

These States Are Most Impacted by the Spike in Gas Prices

The recent spike in gasoline prices is on pace to cost American drivers an extra $9.4 billion per month. Gas prices are up dramatically across the country, but the South has been hit hardest and is on pace to pay $4.2 billion more per month.

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We Must Focus on Black Women to Reduce Inequity in the Tax Code

March 19, 2026 • By Brakeyshia Samms, Francine Lipman

We Must Focus on Black Women to Reduce Inequity in the Tax Code

As nice as it is to celebrate Women’s History Month, if we want a brighter future for women, we need to forge public policies that reduce inequity and include all of us.

State Rundown 3/18: New Mexico Enacts Most Significant Corporate Tax Reform of the Year

As states lawmakers continue to weigh their linkages to the federal tax code in light of the recent federal tax law, New Mexico provides a blueprint for limiting multinational corporate tax avoidance.

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How Four Big Pro-Trump Tech Companies Avoided Taxes

March 17, 2026 • By Steve Wamhoff, Matthew Gardner

How Four Big Pro-Trump Tech Companies Avoided Taxes

The leaders of Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Tesla publicly supported Trump to ensure the most favorable corporate tax policies possible. And Trump delivered for them, both in his 2017 tax bill and again in 2025 with the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

States Should Be Doing More About Corporate Tax Avoidance. New Mexico’s Tax Conformity Law Shows How.

On top of declining to fold large federal business tax cuts into state law, New Mexico also took the monumental step of hardening the state’s corporate tax base against offshore profit shifting.

State Rundown 3/12: Washington Lawmakers Pass Millionaires’ Tax, Expand Working Families Tax Credit

Washington is on its way to making history after the legislature approved the “millionaires’ tax,” a 9.9 percent tax on income over $1 million. The bill, which is expected to raise more than $3 billion a year, making significant investments in public education and childcare, will also expand the Working Families Tax Credit – the […]

Analysis of Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s Approach to Tax Policy

Sen. Chris Van Hollen has recently introduced the Working Americans’ Tax Cut Act, which offers a generous middle-class tax cut paid for with a new tax on millionaires.

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