
In the face of immense uncertainty around looming federal tax and budget decisions, many of which could threaten state budgets, state lawmakers have an opportunity to show up for their constituents by raising and protecting the revenue needed to fund shared priorities. Lawmakers have a choice: advance tax policies that improve equity and help communities thrive, or push tax policies that disproportionately benefit the wealthy, drain funding for critical public services, and make it harder for most families to get ahead.
February 20, 2025 • By Carl Davis, Matthew Gardner, Michael Mazerov
Universal adoption of mandatory worldwide combined reporting would boost state corporate income tax revenues by roughly 14 percent. Thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia would experience revenue increases totaling $19.1 billion.
February 11, 2025 • By Carl Davis, Jon Whiten
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.
January 28, 2025 • By ITEP Staff
ITEP tracks tax discussions in legislatures across the country and uses our unique data capacity to analyze the revenue, distributional, and racial and ethnic impacts of many of these proposals. State Tax Watch offers the latest news and movement from each state.
January 22, 2025 • By ITEP Staff
As state legislative sessions ramp up many lawmakers discuss their prioritization of affordability of necessities like food and housing as they craft their legislative agendas. Arkansas, Mississippi and Utah are looking to reduce or fully exempt groceries from their state sales taxes. Meanwhile, multiple proposals to reduce property taxes are making their way around state […]
It’s a new year, and state legislatures across the country are resolved to write new tax policy. Tax debates are heating up nearly everywhere in the early days of 2025, but states’ fiscal situations vary dramatically. New York is considering expanding the state’s Child Tax Credit following Gov. Hochul’s proposed expansion. On the other side […]
January 8, 2025 • By Steve Wamhoff
Trump’s plan to make most of the temporary provisions of his 2017 tax law permanent would disproportionately benefit the richest Americans. This includes all major provisions except the $10,000 cap on deductions for state and local taxes (SALT) paid.
The anti-tax playbook has been on full display in recent weeks as state policymakers run their offenses against public services and shared priorities. As the playbook dictates, if you have a little breathing room in your budget, propose cuts to the one major tax (personal income tax) that tends to ask more of those who […]
November 20, 2024 • By Brakeyshia Samms
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.
Tax policy results are mixed across the country as many voters weigh in on state and local ballot measures. For example, Washington state voted to maintain its new progressive tax on capital gains; Georgia voters capped growth in property tax assessments; Illinois voters approved a call for a millionaires’ tax; North Dakota voters rejected property […]
September 13, 2024 • By Steve Wamhoff
The TCJA Permanency Act would make permanent the provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 that are set to expire at the end of 2025. The legislation would disproportionately benefit the richest Americans. Below are graphics for each state that show the effects of making TCJA permanent across income groups. See ITEP’s […]
September 12, 2024 • By Neva Butkus
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.
September 12, 2024 • By Neva Butkus
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.
July 31, 2024
A new study describes states that the tax contributions of undocumented immigrants equate to almost $100 billion, both federally and statewide. Read more or listen here.
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.
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.
July 17, 2024 • By Emma Sifre, Marco Guzman
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.
May 22, 2024 • By ITEP Staff
State legislatures are wrapping up, but don’t stray too far from your state capital or you’ll miss out on the action...
April 11, 2024 • By ITEP Staff
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.
April 8, 2024
The most impactful changes in state taxes this year have come in the form of new or expanded tax credits targeted at families with children, according to Aidan Davis, state policy director at the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), a nonprofit, nonpartisan tax policy organization. “The first really incredible — and, I would say, positive — trend was that 18 states created or enhanced child tax credits or income tax credits in their states,” Davis says. Three of those states (Minnesota, Oregon and Utah) launched brand-new child tax credits, she says, with the remainder altering, and usually improving, existing credits.
Over the past week Utah continued its slow march toward a more inequitable tax code...
Governors and legislative leaders in a dozen states have made calls to fully eliminate their taxes on personal or corporate income, after many states already deeply slashed them over the past few years. The public deserves to know the true impact of these plans, which would inevitably result in an outsized windfall to states’ richest taxpayers, more power in the hands of wealthy households and corporations, extreme cuts to basic public services, and more deeply inequitable state tax codes.
March 4, 2024
Utah lawmakers dropped the state’s income tax rate again this year. The reduction in the individual and corporate state income tax rate from 4.65% to 4.55% adds up to nearly $170 million, slightly more than the amount set aside in December for an unspecified tax cut by the powerful Executive Appropriations Committee made up of legislative leadership. The higher price tag is due to updated revenue forecasts showing an anticipated increase in income tax collections and the Legislature’s longtime Republican supermajority left little doubt they intended to continue to lower the state income tax rate. A tax cut was announced as a top…
State legislative sessions are in full swing with New Jersey and Oklahoma both particularly active this week...