Recent Work

Trump’s Last Tax Cuts Failed Americans Like Me. Let’s Not Repeat the Mistake.

June 5, 2025 • By Brakeyshia Samms

Now as more GOP tax cuts for the rich move through Congress, history is poised to repeat itself. The bill would disproportionately benefit the well-off — and harm the financial well-being of millions of working Americans, including Black women like me.

Amid Economic Uncertainty, Delaware Lawmakers Should Consider Progressive Revenue Proposals

June 4, 2025 • By Miles Trinidad

Delaware leaders cited the ongoing federal tax debate and economic uncertainty amid the Trump administration's tariffs and trade wars as reasons to delay pursuing some of the progressive tax increases that Gov. Matt Meyers proposed in recent months. But just the opposite is needed. Delaware lawmakers should advance tax policies that can simultaneously protect state revenue to fund important priorities and improve tax equity in the state ahead of the approaching fiscal storm.

Sweeping Federal Tax and Spending Changes Threaten Local Governments

June 3, 2025 • By Kamolika Das

Given this environment, local leaders must do what they can to preserve and strengthen progressive revenue tools, advocate for expanded local taxing authorities and flexibility, and push their state leaders to decouple from harmful federal tax changes.

Five Issues for States to Watch in the Federal Tax Debate

June 3, 2025 • By Dylan Grundman O'Neill, Kamolika Das, Marco Guzman, Miles Trinidad, Neva Butkus

This post covers five particularly notable provisions for states: increasing deductions for state and local taxes (SALT) paid, allowing more generous tax write-offs for businesses, offering new avenues for capital gains tax avoidance to people contributing to private school voucher funds, carving tips and overtime out of the tax base, and re-upping Opportunity Zone tax breaks for wealthy investors.

House Bill’s $164 Billion Giveaway to Multinational Corporations Puts America Last

May 27, 2025 • By Sarah Austin

The House of Representatives’ recently passed tax bill changes course on taxing multinational corporations engaged in shifting U.S. profits overseas, offering massive tax giveaways that weaken American revenues and risk sending more American corporate investment offshore.

House Tax Bill Would Create a Parallel, Harsher Tax Code for Immigrant Filers and their Citizen Family Members

May 22, 2025 • By Carl Davis, Sarah Austin

Immigrant tax filers face a harsher tax code than citizens in some important respects. Sweeping tax legislation recently passed by the House of Representatives would apply new or stricter limits for immigrant tax filers to 10 additional areas of the tax code.

Analysis of Tax Provisions in the House Reconciliation Bill: National and State Level Estimates

May 22, 2025 • By Carl Davis, Jessica Vela, Joe Hughes, Steve Wamhoff

The poorest fifth of Americans would receive 1 percent of the House reconciliation bill's net tax cuts in 2026 while the richest fifth of Americans would receive two-thirds of the tax cuts. The richest 5 percent alone would receive a little less than half of the net tax cuts that year.

State Rundown 5/21: Big and Not-So Beautiful Tax Cut Bills Abound in States

May 21, 2025 • By ITEP Staff

As a sprawling, regressive tax bill continues to take shape at the federal level, many states are moving forward with major tax cut proposals of their own.

The House Tax Plan, By the Numbers

May 16, 2025 • By Carl Davis

The House of Representatives unveiled a sprawling piece of tax legislation earlier this week that would extend temporary tax changes enacted in 2017 and layer various kinds of tax cuts and increases on top. The JCT analysis makes clear that the House tax plan would be regressive, meaning it would offer larger tax cuts as a share of income to high-income taxpayers than to either middle-class or working-class families. It also makes clear that most of the tax cuts would go to families with above-average incomes.

Trump Megabill Will Encourage Dynastic Wealth Hoarding by Further Weakening the Estate Tax

May 15, 2025 • By Jon Whiten

The tax and spending megabill signed into law by President Trump on July 4 will cut nearly $200 billion from food assistance, affecting tens of millions adults and children, while providing an estate tax cut costing roughly the same amount to a few thousand people who will leave behind more than $7 million to their heirs.

House Tax Bill Enlists the Wealthy to Spread Private School Vouchers

May 15, 2025 • By Carl Davis

The House tax plan cuts charitable giving tax incentives for donors to most nonprofit groups while roughly tripling the incentive available to donors to groups that fund private K-12 school vouchers. The bill would also allow private school voucher donors to avoid capital gains tax on their gifts of corporate stock, creating a profitable tax shelter for wealthy people who agree to help funnel public funds into private schools. The bill would reduce federal tax revenue by $23.2 billion over the next 10 years as currently drafted, or by $67 billion over the next 10 years if it is extended…

State Rundown 5/15: State Tax Debates Carry On in the Midst of Chaotic Federal Tax Landscape

May 15, 2025 • By ITEP Staff

Even as most major headlines have been about the ever-changing landscape of federal tax policy, the latest “ideas of the week," and now the House tax bill, state tax policy continues to be a priority for lawmakers.

Trump’s Proposed Higher Tax Rate on the Richest Taxpayers Would Affect Very Little of Their Income

May 10, 2025 • By Carl Davis, Steve Wamhoff

President Donald Trump has proposed allowing the top rate to revert from 37 percent to 39.6 percent for taxable income greater than $5 million for married couples and $2.5 million for unmarried taxpayers. But many other special breaks in the tax code would ensure that most income of very well-off people would never be subject to Trump’s 39.6 percent tax rate.

State Rundown 5/7: As Budget Season Heats Up, Tax Proposals Are Getting Serious

May 7, 2025 • By ITEP Staff

With spring in full bloom ,many state lawmakers are reaching tax policy agreements. Out west, lawmakers in North Dakota and Texas have moved major property tax cuts. Meanwhile, in the east and south, Vermont appears likely to pass an expansion to its Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, and South Carolina lawmakers are aiming to make deep, drastic cuts to the state’s income tax.

What Corporations Have to Gain from the Gutting of the IRS

May 7, 2025 • By Matthew Gardner, Spandan Marasini, Steve Wamhoff

Seven huge corporations recently announced that in 2024 they were allowed to collectively keep $1.4 billion in tax breaks from previous years that they had publicly admitted would likely be found illegal if investigated – all because the tax authorities were unable to identify and disallow them before the statute of limitations ran out.