Our Mission
One of America’s most established and relied-upon think tanks, the Tax Foundation has since 1937 worked for simple, sensible tax policy at the federal, state, and local levels. We do this by informing Americans about the size of tax burdens and providing economically principled analysis of tax policy issues.
How Should Journalists Describe Us?
The Tax Foundation is a non-partisan tax research group based in Washington, D.C.
The Tax Foundation Story
The year was 1937, the heart of the Great Depression. During the previous decade, first under Herbert Hoover, then under Franklin Roosevelt, federal spending had climbed 170 percent; over the previous five years internal revenue collections had risen 198 percent.
Concerned about the effect such expansion might have on private sector growth, a small group of business executives gathered in New York City to discuss how they could monitor fiscal activities at all levels of government and convey the information to the general public. They decided to launch an organization which, through research and analysis, could inform and educate Americans using objective, reliable data on government finance.
In the subsequent seven decades, the Tax Foundation has been a national leader in promoting a sense of "tax consciousness" in the public. Its distribution of information has helped provide policy makers with the lay of the land in the ongoing debate over tax and budget policies, as well as with a greater understanding of the policies proposed.
The Tax Foundation's ambitious tax research and program agenda has had a large impact on state and federal tax debates. At the federal level, we have built the tools and intellectual arguments for initiating a multi-year debate over fundamental tax reform and restoring America’s global tax competitiveness. At the state level, we advise policymakers how to make their tax systems more pro-growth and use our various state rankings to foster tax competition between the states.
Our research receives a record number of citations, ranging from newspaper and television journalists (over 2,500 media citations per year) to governors and presidential candidates. In addition to traditional outreach and media cultivation, our widely-viewed videos have done much to advance public education on key tax issues, as has our blog (ranked in the top two in the nation by the Wall Street Journal), weekly podcast program (10,100 subscribers) and our social media presence on Facebook and Twitter.
In its seven decades the Tax Foundation has earned a reputation for its independence in gathering data and publishing information on the public sector in an objective, unbiased fashion. As a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt educational organization, the Tax Foundation exists on voluntary contributions from philanthropic foundations, corporations, and individuals across the country. Please help support our mission—click here to learn how.
Help Advance Our Mission
As a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt educational organization, the Tax Foundation exists on voluntary contributions from philanthropic foundations, corporations, and individuals across the country. Please help support our mission—click here to learn how.
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