Trump Tax Policies
State-by-State Estimates of the First Year of Trump’s Tax Policies: All But the Richest Americans Face Higher Taxes
• By Steve Wamhoff, Michael Ettlinger
As a result of the tax policies approved by President Trump and the Republican majority in Congress, all but the richest Americans are paying higher taxes on average in 2026 than they did last year.
Despite a Supreme Court Victory for Middle-Class Americans, Trump’s Disastrous Tariff Policies Are Not Over
• By Steve Wamhoff
Today the Supreme Court made the right decision in striking down most of the tariffs President Trump has put into motion during his second term.
Live Nation Entertainment Says Trump Tax Law Drove its 2025 Federal Income Tax Bill to Zero
• By Matthew Gardner
The company paid zero federal income tax in 2025 despite reporting $145 million of U.S. profits.
Trump Administration Provides Biggest Illegal Tax Cuts Yet for Billion-Dollar Corporations
• By Amy Hanauer
The Treasury Department is unilaterally cutting corporate taxes with regulations that ignore the statute they claim to implement, disregarding the separation of powers between the branches of government that has defined how America works for more than two centuries.
Palantir Pays Zero Federal Income Tax Despite Explosive Growth, Largely Due to Trump Tax Law
• By Matthew Gardner
Palantir reported $1.5 billion of U.S. income but paid exactly zero federal income tax in 2025. Despite explosive growth, tax breaks from the Trump tax law helped Palantir avoid paying even a dime of federal income tax on its earnings.
Trump Undermined the Constitution to Give Corporations a $10 Billion Tax Cut
• By Matthew Gardner
This unilateral corporate tax cut from the Trump administration will cost $10 billion over a decade unless it is reversed.
What Did 2025 State Tax Changes Mean for Racial and Economic Equity?
• By Brakeyshia Samms
The results are a mixed bag, with some states enacting promising policies that will improve tax equity and others going in the opposite direction.
Four Big Tech Companies Avoid $51 Billion in Taxes in Wake of One Big Beautiful Bill Act
• By Matthew Gardner
Four of the corporations whose CEOs flanked President Trump at his 2025 inauguration ceremony have now disclosed that they collectively received $51 billion in federal tax breaks in 2025, much of that likely from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA).
State Rundown 2/5: Icy Roads Do Not Slow Tax Policy Debates
• By ITEP Staff
Despite wintry conditions across much of the country, that hasn’t stopped state lawmakers from debating major tax policy changes.
Meta’s Federal Tax Rate Hits an All-Time Low Due to Breaks Expanded by Trump Tax Law
• By Matthew Gardner
The company paid an effective federal income tax rate of just over 3.5% in 2025, the lowest it has recorded since the company went public as Facebook in 2012.
An Anti-Affordability Agenda: Trump’s Advisors Call on States to Raise Taxes on the Working Class and Drastically Cut Taxes for the Rich
• By Carl Davis
The Trump administration’s Council of Economic Advisors suggests that states consider drastically raising sales taxes and using those new revenues to pay for repealing taxes on corporate and personal income. Working-class families would face dramatic tax increases while the nation’s wealthiest families would see their state tax bills plummet.
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.
No, Scott Bessent: States Aren’t Taking Away Anyone’s Tax Cuts
• By Nick Johnson
It’s wildly inappropriate for a U.S. Treasury Secretary to lean on states to adopt or not adopt specific federal provisions in their own state tax codes.
Linking to Tipped and Overtime Income Deductions Would Worsen State Shortfalls, Do Little to Help Workers
• By Neva Butkus, Galen Hendricks
State deductions for tips and overtime are not only ineffective at supporting working-class people, it will come at a substantial cost to state budgets.
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.
