Recent Work
2275 items
Six Companies Reaped $83 Billion in Federal Tax Breaks in 2025
August 14, 2026 • By Sarah Buttikofer, Matthew Gardner
Six companies alone accounted for $83 billion of federal tax breaks disclosed by publicly traded U.S companies so far for 2025. Microsoft received a record high for single-year federal tax breaks for one publicly traded company, followed by Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, JPMorgan Chase, and Nvidia.
In a win for Missouri workers and families, voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposed amendment that would have allowed lawmakers to replace the state's income tax with increased or expanded sales taxes.
Child Tax Credits and Child and Dependent Care Credits: What’s the Difference?
August 13, 2026 • By Maddie Shirley
Three popular state tax credits support families with children: the Child Tax Credit (CTC, or child credit), the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC, or dependent care credit), and the Earned Income Credit (EITC). While the EITC is intended to boost wages for low- and moderate-income workers and families, the CTC and CDCTC are […]
Trump Weighs Another Giveaway to the Wealthy With Capital Gains Indexing Ahead of Midterms
August 12, 2026 • By Jon Whiten
Trump is once again weighing a proposal to index capital gains taxes to inflation as part of a set of policy promises ahead of the midterm elections. It would amount to a massive new tax break for wealthy investors.
How Federal Tax Policy Can Address AI
August 10, 2026 • By Steve Wamhoff, Joe Hughes, Erika Frankel
Congress could use its taxing power to ensure a fairer distribution of the fruits of labor, innovation and investment, address the specific harms (the negative externalities) of AI specifically, and acquire a public stake in the companies that are driving the AI revolution.
New Yorkers, Please Pay Your City Income Taxes: Why the Pied-à-Terre Tax Rollout Is Not Worth a Meltdown
August 7, 2026 • By Rita Jefferson
The news coverage of the second home tax has been disconnected from the real living conditions for the millions of New Yorkers who don’t own a second (or third, or fourth) home.
Twenty states have sales tax holidays on the books in 2026, two more than last year. The combined annual cost to state and local budgets this year is estimated to be around $600 million.
IRS Cuts Could Cruise on Autopilot; New Bill Aims to Restore Funding to Help Taxpayers and Fight Tax Cheats
August 6, 2026 • By Sarah C. G. Christopherson
This fall, Congress could allow billions of dollars in IRS funding to disappear on autopilot. However, the Stop CHEATERS Act would restore the multi-year mandatory funding rescinded from the IRA and account for recent cuts to the IRS’s base budget.
Video: These airlines avoided almost all federal income taxes in 2025.
August 6, 2026 • By Marcus Rojas
Your travel costs are going up, but their tax bills are going down.
Missouri Voters Reject Amendment 5 and a Damaging Tax Shift onto Working Families
August 4, 2026 • By Eli Byerly-Duke, Jon Whiten
Yesterday Missouri voters rejected Amendment 5, declining to give lawmakers a blank check to raise or expand sales taxes, something some lawmakers sought to enable enormous income tax cuts for the state’s wealthiest households.
Trump Says Exxon and Chevron Are Ripping Off Americans, But His Own Policies Are to Blame
August 4, 2026 • By Matthew Gardner
President Trump lashed out at ExxonMobil and Chevron for “making too much money." These companies are reporting enormous profits right now, partly the result of Trump’s war in Iran but also due to the corporate tax policies he's passed during his time in office.
Microsoft Reports a 2.44 Percent Federal Tax Rate on a Record $101 Billion in Profits
July 29, 2026 • By Matthew Gardner
Microsoft avoided federal income tax on almost all of its U.S. income for fiscal year 2026. The company’s 2.44 percent federal tax rate on over $100 billion of U.S. income is largely attributable to tax breaks that were either created or expanded by Republican tax cuts enacted at the behest of President Donald Trump in 2017 and 2025.
State Rundown 7/29: The Misguided, Miserly Missouri Amendment to Eliminate the Income Tax
July 29, 2026 • By ITEP Staff
Missouri voters are facing a major decision at the ballot box next week on Amendment 5, which would amend the state constitution to allow lawmakers to eliminate the individual income tax and expand the state’s sales tax on any good or service to make up for lost revenue.
Flying Under the Tax Radar: How Profitable Airlines Avoided Federal Income Taxes in 2025
July 27, 2026 • By Sarah Buttikofer, Spandan Marasini
Corporate tax disclosures reveal that five profitable airlines paid almost nothing in federal income tax last year. In 2025, the effective federal income tax rates of these airlines ranged from 1.07 percent to below zero.
The Campaign by Former Democratic Officials to Stop Taxes on the Wealthy Is Back
July 24, 2026 • By Steve Wamhoff
A former Democratic senator from Nebraska has joined Saving America’s Family Enterprises and taken up its cause of opposing wealth taxes.
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