Trump-GOP Tax Law
How the Wealthy Exploit the Tax Code: Q&A with Professor Ray Madoff, Author of ‘The Second Estate’
• By Brakeyshia Samms
Her timely book, The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy, walks readers through federal tax policy history and the modern-day legal maneuvers the wealthy use to pay little to no taxes
States Can Push Back Against Reckless Federal Tax Policy. Here’s How.
• By Aidan Davis, Wesley Tharpe
They should take steps to protect and boost their own revenues. And they should take a second look at their own tax cuts.
Local Governments Are Increasingly Strapped: 2026 Will Bring New Challenges and New Opportunities
• By Kamolika Das
2025 saw an intensification of state and local tax fights across the country, as well as growing experimentation with local-option taxes, levies, fees, and tourism taxes aimed at keeping budgets afloat while also navigating political constraints imposed by state legislatures.
Don’t Be Fooled by Treasury’s Jekyll and Hyde Approach to Tax Enforcement
• By Matthew Gardner
While this guidance is sorely needed to clean up the mess created by a hasty Congress, these notices stand in sharp contrast to the deregulatory, anti-tax approach that the Treasury Department has taken.
2025: The Year in Tax Policy
• By ITEP Staff
From Congressional discussions over the so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" to debates on property taxes, ITEP kept busy this year analyzing tax proposals and showing Americans across the country how tax decisions affect them.
‘Tax the Rich,’ Says … Mitt Romney?
• By Matthew Gardner
His 900-word New York Times op-ed identifies some sensible federal tax reform ideas that would create a fairer, more sustainable tax system.
10 Reasons Why the U.S. Should Reform Its Corporate Income Tax
• By Steve Wamhoff
The U.S. needs a tax code that is more progressive and that raises more revenue than the one we have now. An important way to achieve this is to reform the taxation of business profits.
President Trump Says His Tariffs Aren’t Paid by Americans. Corporations Are Indicating the Opposite.
• By Logan Liguore
Corporations have publicly revealed that they are passing the cost of tariffs on to Americans—the opposite of what the executive branch has said is happening.
Conforming to the ‘No Tax on Tips’ Gimmick Just Got Riskier and Costlier for States
• By Nick Johnson
An unknown number of workers who previously were assumed to be ineligible for the tax break may nonetheless claim it.
Re-Examining 529 Plans: Stopping State Subsidies to Private Schools After New Trump Tax Law
• By Miles Trinidad, Nick Johnson
The 2025 federal tax law risks making 529 plans more costly for states by increasing tax avoidance and allowing wealthy families to use these funds for private and religious K-12 schools.
State Tax Dollars Shouldn’t Subsidize Federal Opportunity Zones
• By Eli Byerly-Duke
The Opportunity Zones program benefits wealthy investors more than it benefits disadvantaged communities.
Trump Raises the Price of Filing a Tax Return
• By Joe Hughes
The move was expected, given heavy lobbying from tax prep companies like Intuit and H&R Block to put a halt to the IRS’s popular Direct File program.
Biden Tax Reforms Take a $16 Billion Bite Out of Trump’s Big Tax Giveaway to Meta
• By Matthew Gardner
Meta’s earnings setback is entirely attributable to an important tax reform championed by the Biden administration in 2022.
Why States Shouldn’t Go Along With OBBBA’s Corporate Tax Breaks: A Practical Guide
• By Nick Johnson, Michael Mazerov
States should immediately decouple from four costly corporate tax provisions in the new federal tax law.
Well, That Was Fast: Trump Tax Law’s New Corporate Breaks are Already Worsening the Deficit
• By ITEP Staff
Corporate income taxes for the fiscal year that ended in September are $77 billion lower than in the previous year, a 15 percent drop.
Leaving Billions on the Table: Trump-Induced Brain Drain Leaves the IRS Struggling to Prevent Corporate Tax Avoidance
• By Matthew Gardner
The IRS's capacity to prevent big multinational corporations from avoiding income taxes is facing a generational crisis.
Who Can Make a Billion Dollar Mistake and Not Lose Their Jobs? Congress
• By Matthew Gardner
A drafting error in the 2017 tax law will cost U.S. taxpayers over $1 billion in unintended tax cuts for big multinationals.
How Will the Trump Megabill Change Americans’ Taxes in 2026?
• By Steve Wamhoff, Michael Ettlinger, Carl Davis, Jon Whiten
The megabill will raise taxes on the poorest 40 percent of Americans, barely cut them for the middle 20 percent, and cut them tremendously for the wealthiest Americans next year.
GOP Megabill Breaks America’s Promise to Future Generations
• By Amy Hanauer
This country’s biggest historical challenge has been delivering this progress to all Americans, but Republicans have cut it back for everyone, retreating from many 20th century achievements in ways that will slam doors, rather than opening them, for the next generation.
10 Crazy Comparisons Showing How Much Trump and Congress Just Cut Taxes for the Rich
• By ITEP Staff
$117 billion is a big number, so we thought it could use a little context.
There Were Far Cheaper and Fairer Options Than the Trump Megabill
• By Steve Wamhoff, Joe Hughes, Jessica Vela
Congress and the president could have spent less than half that much money on a tax bill that does more for working-class and middle-class households.
Analysis of Tax Provisions in the Trump Megabill as Signed into Law: National and State Level Estimates
• By Steve Wamhoff, Carl Davis, Joe Hughes, Jessica Vela
President Trump has signed into law the tax and spending “megabill” that largely favors the richest taxpayers and provides working-class Americans with relatively small tax cuts that will in many cases be more than offset by Trump's tariffs.
Top 1% to Receive $1 Trillion Tax Cut from Trump Megabill Over the Next Decade
• By Carl Davis
The Trump megabill will give the top 1 percent tax cuts totaling $1.02 trillion over the next decade. For comparison, the bill’s cuts to the Medicaid health care program will total $930 billion over the same period.
Trump Megabill Will Give $117 Billion in Tax Cuts to the Top 1% in 2026. How Much In Your State?
• By Michael Ettlinger
The predominant feature of the tax and spending bill working its way through Congress is a massive tax cut for the richest 1 percent — a $114 billion benefit to the wealthiest people in the country in 2026 alone.
How Much Do the Top 1% in Each State Get from the Trump Megabill?
• By Carl Davis
The Senate tax bill under debate right now would bring very large tax cuts to very high-income people. In total, the richest 1 percent would receive $114 billion in tax cuts next year alone. That would amount to nearly $61,000 for each of these affluent households.
