Tracking the Impact of the Trump Tariffs & Trade War
The Trump tariffs have not meaningfully altered the trade balance and amount to an average tax increase per US household of $700 in 2026.
55 min readThe Tax Foundation is the world’s leading independent tax policy 501(c)(3) nonprofit. For over 85 years, our mission has remained the same: to improve lives through tax policies that lead to greater economic growth and opportunity.
Our Center for Federal Tax Policy, Center for State Tax Policy, and Center for Global Tax Policy each produce timely and high-quality research and analysis that influences the debate toward economically principled tax policies. Our experts are continuously analyzing the day’s most relevant tax policy topics and are relied upon routinely for presentations, testimony, and media appearances on tax issues spanning every level of government.
Likewise, providing journalists, taxpayers, and policymakers with basic data on taxes and spending has been a cornerstone of the Tax Foundation’s educational mission since its founding. As we wrote in our first edition of Facts & Figures in 1941, “Facts give a broader perspective; facts dissipate predilections and prejudices…[and are] an important step to meet the challenge presented by the broad problems of public finance.”
The Trump tariffs have not meaningfully altered the trade balance and amount to an average tax increase per US household of $700 in 2026.
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How will recent federal tax changes affect you?
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The State Tax Competitiveness Index enables policymakers, taxpayers, and business leaders to gauge how their states’ tax systems compare. While there are many ways to show how much state governments collect in taxes, the Index evaluates how well states structure their tax systems and provides a road map for improvement.
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Lawmakers can constrain the growth of property taxes without creating new problems. But the details matter.
Our experts explain how this major tax legislation may affect you and how policymakers can better improve the tax code.
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For Congress, work on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is done. But in state capitols, the work has not yet begun. Many of the tax changes in the federal reconciliation act flow through to state tax codes—automatically in some states, and subject to an update in states’ Internal Revenue Code conformity date in others.
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As a rule, an individual’s income can be taxed both by the state in which the taxpayer resides and by the state in which the taxpayer’s income is earned.
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Notably, the OBBBA makes permanent the individual tax changes first put in place by the TCJA, which avoids a tax hike on an estimated 62 percent of tax filers in 2026.
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Facts & Figures serves as a one-stop state tax data resource that compares all 50 states on over 40 measures of tax rates, collections, burdens, and more.
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While there are many factors that affect a country’s economic performance, taxes play an important role. A well-structured tax code is easy for taxpayers to comply with and can promote economic development while raising sufficient revenue for a government’s priorities.
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New IRS data shows the US federal income tax system continues to be progressive as high-income taxpayers pay the highest average income tax rates. Average tax rates for all income groups remain lower after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA).
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The variety of approaches to taxation among European countries creates a need to evaluate these systems relative to each other. For that purpose, we have developed the European Tax Policy Scorecard—a relative comparison of European countries’ tax systems.
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IRS and Census data show that people and businesses favor states with low and structurally sound tax systems, which can impact the state’s economic growth and governmental coffers.
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The 2022 Spanish Regional Tax Competitiveness Index allows policymakers and taxpayers to evaluate and measure how their regions’ tax systems compare.
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Alaska policymakers are understandably concerned about the long-term viability of the state’s overwhelming reliance on the oil and gas industry for revenue, but the state’s unique economy and geography, and low population density make some of the “traditional” taxes less efficient than they might be elsewhere.
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It’s unlikely these implemented and proposed windfall taxes will achieve their goals of addressing high gas and energy prices and raising additional revenues. They would more likely raise prices, penalize domestic production, and punitively target certain industries without a sound tax base.
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When examining tax burdens on businesses, it is important to consider both federal and state corporate taxes. Corporate taxes are one of the most economically damaging ways to raise revenue and are a promising area of reform for states to increase competitiveness and promote economic growth, benefiting both companies and workers.
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For many years, the UK has adopted a strikingly ungenerous approach to capital cost recovery – the ability of firms to write off investment against tax. This has coincided with consistently low levels of business investment. The super-deduction, which has temporarily made the UK tax system much more supportive of capital investment in plant and machinery is set to expire.
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The Section 232 tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum raised the cost of production for manufacturers, reducing employment in those industries, raising prices for consumers, and hurting exports.
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Carryover tax provisions help businesses “smooth” their risk and income, making the tax code more neutral across investments and over time.
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Property taxes are the primary tool for financing local government and generating state-level revenue in some states as well.
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Massachusetts’ competitive tax advantage in New England is driven primarily by its competitive individual income tax rate and its sales and use tax structure. If the Commonwealth changes its tax code in ways that narrow the base or increase the rate, it cedes greater tax competitiveness to other states, regionally and nationally.
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With continued concerns over inflation, individuals may be wondering how their tax bills will be impacted. Less than half of OECD countries in Europe automatically adjust income tax brackets for inflation every year.
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Tennessee, Alaska, Hawaii, and Kentucky levy the highest beer excise tax rates in the nation. How does your state compare?
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The phaseout of 100 percent bonus depreciation, scheduled to take place after the end of 2022, will increase the after-tax cost of investment in the U.S. Permanently extending it would increase long-run economic output by 0.4 percent and increase employment by 73,000 FTE jobs.
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The mix of tax sources states choose can have important implications for both revenue stability and economic growth, and the many variations across states are indicative of the different ways states weigh competing policy goals.
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Patent box regimes (also referred to as intellectual property, or IP, regimes) provide lower effective tax rates on income derived from IP. Most commonly, eligible types of IP are patents and software copyrights. Currently, 13 of the 27 EU member states have a patent box regime.
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A marriage penalty exists when a state’s income brackets for married taxpayers filing jointly are less than double the bracket widths that apply to single filers. In other words, married couples who file jointly under this scenario have a higher effective tax rate than they would if they filed as two single individuals with the same amount of combined income.
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How will the Inflation Reduction Act taxes impact inflation, economic growth, tax revenue, and everyday taxpayers? See Inflation Reduction Act tax changes.
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About half of all European OECD countries have either announced, proposed, or implemented a digital services tax.
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However well-intended they may be, sales tax holidays remain the same as they always have been—ineffective and inefficient.
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’Tis the season to crack open a cold one. Ahead of International Beer Day on August 5th, let’s take a minute to discover how much of your cash is actually going toward the cost of a brew with this week’s tax map, which explores excise duties on beer.
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