Brakeyshia Samms

Senior Analyst

Brakeyshia Samms


For over a decade, Brakeyshia has produced engaging research and analyses for today’s tax policy debates. As a senior analyst on the Cross Cutting Research team, she writes and presents on local, state, and federal tax topics, and especially focuses on how these policies relate to racial equity. Her key role is to inform the public and support advocates and policymakers with analyses that help advance equitable tax policies, sound fiscal practices, and policy solutions that remedy historical injustices.  

Throughout her career she has authored essays for Tax Notes, The Huffington Post, The Dallas Morning News, The Austin American-Statesman, Human Rights, Bloomberg Tax, and Common Dreams. She’s presented to both houses of the Texas Legislature, Chicago City Council’s Committee on Housing and Real Estate, The American Bar Association, The University of Texas at Austin, Duke University, The University of Missouri, and The US Department of State, among others. Her work has garnered the attention of the public, other researchers, and the media.

Previously, she was a senior associate on the Fiscal Federalism Initiative at Pew researching tax policies and public programs at the intersection of the federal-state fiscal relationship. Prior to Pew, she spent two years in Austin, TX, as a state policy fellow with Every Texan through the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ post-graduate research fellowship program.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and history from the University of Texas at Tyler and a master’s degree in public policy from George Mason University. She is a proud native of Carrollton, Texas.   

brakeyshia at itep.org

Recent Publications and Posts   view more

  • Circuit Breakers Are a Better Option for Property Tax Relief

    To curb the impact of property taxes on working families, lawmakers should improve or implement a property tax circuit breaker program. The program works like this: when families are overloaded with their property taxes, the circuit breaker kicks in and helps alleviate the pressure these taxes put on family budgets.

  • A Well Targeted Federal Renter Credit Could Help Reduce Wealth Gaps

    While lawmakers often speak about income inequality, less attention is paid to wealth inequality. Wealth is distributed even more unequally than income in the U.S. in ways that reinforce racial divides, leave some households with too little to handle unexpected expenses, and enable some households to pass down enormous intergenerational wealth. A renter tax credit is one tool lawmakers can use to reduce wealth inequalities both within racial and ethnic groups and between these groups. As we show in our new analysis, Black and Hispanic households are more likely to be renters and hold less wealth than white households.