Jon Whiten
Deputy Director
Areas of Expertise
State Taxes Federal Taxes CommunicationsAs Deputy Director, Jon helps guide ITEP’s overall strategy and approach to policy change, works to properly resource ITEP’s work, and leads ITEP’s work to shape the public debate around tax policy and ensure that policymakers, advocates, and other stakeholders are using ITEP’s data and analysis in order to make sound decisions.
Before joining ITEP in 2022, Jon was the Director of State Communications at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. At CBPP, he led a team that helps boost the communications capacity and provide strategic direction to the more than 40 state-based policy and advocacy organizations that make up the State Priorities Partnership. This work included everything from working on in-depth messaging and public-opinion research to managing state policy report rollouts to overseeing training and peer-learning opportunities for communicators throughout the network, and more.
Before that, he was Vice President at New Jersey Policy Perspective, where he led the organization’s strategic communications and advocacy campaigns and oversaw its policy development. His work at NJPP helped lead to a range of policy victories, including several increases in the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit, tax increases on the wealthiest New Jerseyans, more accountability of corporate tax breaks, boosts to the state’s minimum wage, Medicaid expansion, a statewide earned sick leave law, the first increase in TANF cash assistance in decades, and more. He also managed NJPP’s finances and operations and researched tax, budget, and economic issues. In New Jersey, he also served on Gov. Phil Murphy’s transition team, advising on tax and budget policy.
Jon has also worked as a writer and editor for a wide range of publications, nonprofit organizations, and authors. He holds an M.A. in media ecology from New York University and a B.S. in communications from Boston University. He currently serves on the Steering Committee of Americans for Tax Fairness. You can find him on Twitter at @WhitenJon.
jon at itep.orgRecent Publications and Posts view more
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House Tax Bill Would Encourage Dynastic Wealth Hoarding by Further Weakening the Estate Tax
The sprawling tax and spending bill before the House of Representatives would cut more than $200 billion from food assistance, potentially affecting 4 million children and 7 million adults, while providing an estate tax cut costing roughly the same amount to a few thousand people who will leave behind more than $7 million to their heirs.
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Ending Direct File Program is a Gift to the Tax-Prep Industry That Will Cost Taxpayers Time and Money
The Trump administration reportedly plans to shutter the IRS Direct File program before it has a chance to get fully off the ground, taking away a free option for people to file their tax returns directly to the agency. Ending Direct File is another gift from this administration to large corporations, this time to the multibillion-dollar tax prep industry that profits from you filing your taxes.
Media Mentions view more
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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Jonathan D. Salant: What Trump's 'One Big Beautiful Bill' Will Mean to Pa. -- and It's Not Pretty
“This bill overall would cut all sorts of benefits for all sorts of Americans who rely on them, whether it’s health care or food assistance or energy credits,” said Jon Whiten, ITEP deputy director. “It’s all being done to find enough money to jam through all of these tax cuts which disproportionately would go to the wealthiest Americans. It’s a little bit like Robin Hood in reverse here.”
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Inc.: Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Offers a Big Tax Win for Small Businesses
The bill that the House of Representatives passed early Thursday morning in a nail-biting 215-to-214 vote—a wide-ranging domestic policy package called…