District of Columbia

The Trump Administration’s plan to turn IRS agents into deportation agents will result in lower tax collections in addition to the harm done to the families and communities directly affected by deportations.

Local income taxes can be an important progressive revenue raiser, as they ask more of higher-income households and are connected to ability to pay. They can raise substantial revenue to fund key public services to make cities and regions better off.

Maryland’s Gov. Wes Moore put forward a tax reform plan that would make the tax system fairer, simpler, and better able to meet the state’s needs. The proposed changes to the income tax ask more of those at the top and provide an average tax cut for those earning less.

The moment Gov. Wes Moore announced his proposal to reform Maryland’s tax system, in part, by raising income tax rates on high-income households, opponents began predicting that wealthy people would respond by leaving. Experience from other states says that’s not the case. 

Nick serves as a Senior Fellow with ITEP’s state and local policy teams. He brings three decades of expertise in state and local tax policy to advance economic justice and sustainable public finance. Most recently, he led the District of Columbia Tax Revision Commission as Executive Director, where he guided the independent, decennial commission’s comprehensive […]

As we close out 2024, we want to lift up the tax charts we published this year that received the most engagement from readers. Covering federal, state, and local tax work, here are our top charts of 2024. 

Focusing policy analysis on Black women illustrates how Black women have long shouldered the shortcomings of the economy and clearly points to solutions that work for all. Black women are at their best when they are financially secure, healthy, and free – and our economy is at its best when all people can thrive and benefit.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry is proposing a regressive tax reform package that would enact a flat personal and corporate income tax while expanding the state’s sales tax base and eliminating certain exemptions to make up for a portion of the lost revenue. West Virginia continues to chip away at its personal income tax, one of the state’s few progressive revenue options. And advocates in New York are rallying around a package of progressive tax legislation that would tax capital gains at higher rates, enact higher income tax brackets on multi-millionaires, and tax unrealized capital gains of billionaires.

Nearly two-thirds of states (31 plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico) have an Earned Income Tax Credit. These credits boost low-paid workers’ incomes and offset some of the taxes they pay, helping lower-income families achieve greater economic security.

Fifteen states plus the District of Columbia provide Child Tax Credits to reduce poverty, boost economic security, and invest in children. This year alone, lawmakers in three states – Colorado, New York, and Utah – expanded their Child Tax Credits while lawmakers in the District of Columbia created a new credit that will take effect in 2025.

Nineteen states have sales tax holidays on the books in 2024. These suspensions combined will cost states and localities over $1.3 billion in lost revenue this year. Sales tax holidays are poorly targeted and too temporary to meaningfully change the regressive nature of a state’s tax system.

Undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022. Providing access to work authorization for undocumented immigrants would increase their tax contributions both because their wages would rise and because their rates of tax compliance would increase.

Four states expanded or boosted refundable tax credits for children and families, and the District of Columbia is poised to create a new Child Tax Credit. These actions — in Colorado, Illinois, New York, Utah, and D.C. — continue the recent trend of improving the well-being of children and families with refundable tax credits.

State lawmakers will have a lot to discuss when they compare notes on how they spent their summer vacations this year...

Major tax cuts were largely rejected this year, but states continue to chip away at income taxes. And while property tax cuts were a hot topic across the country, many states failed to deliver effective solutions to affordability issues.

Undocumented immigrants who work and pay taxes but don't have a valid Social Security number for either themselves or their children are excluded from federal EITC and CTC benefits. Fortunately, several states have stepped in to ensure undocumented immigrants are not left behind by the gaps in the federal EITC and CTC. State lawmakers should continue to ensure that immigrants who are otherwise eligible for these tax credits receive them.

While Massachusetts legislators recently dropped a real estate transfer tax from their major housing bill, the District of Columbia council sent a budget to the mayor that includes a mansion tax that would increase the tax rate on properties valued over $2.5 million. Meanwhile, lawmakers in New Jersey and South Carolina continue to, respectively, raise and reduce needed revenues.

The report was produced in partnership with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and co-authored by CBPP’s Deputy Director of State Policy Research Samantha Waxman.[1] Click here to use our State Mansion Tax Estimator A historically large share of the nation’s wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, a reality glaring in […]

Well-designed property tax circuit breaker programs allow states to reduce the impact that property taxes have on the upside-down tilt of their tax codes.

State budgets are falling into place as lawmakers near the end of their legislative sessions...

Legislative sessions across the country are still very much in for summer, which means more pencils, more budgets, and more tax plans...

There are a variety of factors that affect teacher pay. But one often overlooked factor is progressive tax policies that allow states to raise and provide the funding educators and their students deserve.

State and local tax codes can do a lot to reduce inequality. But they add to the nation’s growing income inequality problem when they capture a greater share of income from low- or moderate-income taxpayers. These regressive tax codes also result in higher tax rates on communities of color, further worsening racial income and wealth divides.

This tax season more than 800,000 households in New York City, Maryland's Montgomery County, and San Francisco are set to receive a boost through local refundable EITCs. These credits put dollars directly into the pockets of low-income households, equipping families with resources to better make ends meet and invest in their futures. In turn, they can help build stronger, fairer, and more resilient communities.

America's tax system is just barely progressive, and not nearly as progressive as many suggest or as progressive as it could be. There is plenty of room for lawmakers to improve the progressivity of the tax code to combat economic, wealth, and racial inequality.