The Tax Foundation is the world’s leading independent tax policy 501(c)(3) nonprofit. For over 80 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.”
Policymakers should have two priorities in the upcoming economic policy debates: a larger economy and fiscal responsibility. Principled, pro-growth tax policy can help accomplish both.
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In recognition of the fact that there are better and worse ways to raise revenue, our Index focuses on how state tax revenue is raised, not how much. The rankings, therefore, reflect how well states structure their tax systems.
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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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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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Unless Congress acts, Americans are in for a tax hike in 2026.
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Tax policy has become a significant focus of the U.S. 2024 presidential election. Our new interactive tool helps keep track of the tax policies proposed by presidential candidates during their campaigns.
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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The federal tax code remains a major source of frustration and controversy for Americans, and a hindrance to economic growth and opportunity. Other countries, such as Estonia, have proven that sufficient tax revenue can be collected in a less frustrating and more efficient way.
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States are unprepared for the ongoing shift to remote and flexible work arrangements, or for the industries and activities of today, to say nothing of tomorrow. In some states, moreover, existing tax provisions exacerbate the impact of high inflation and contribute to the supply chain crisis.
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Tax burdens rose across the country as pandemic-era economic changes caused taxable income, activities, and property values to rise faster than net national product. Tax burdens in 2020, 2021, and 2022 are all higher than in any other year since 1978.
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Of the 225 jurisdictions around the world, only six have increased their top corporate income tax rate in 2023, a trend that might be reversed in the coming years as more countries agree to implement the global minimum tax.
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A landmark comparison of corporate tax costs in all 50 states, Location Matters provides a comprehensive calculation of real-world tax burdens, going beyond headline rates to demonstrate how tax codes impact businesses and offering policymakers a road map to improvement.
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The 2021 tax year was the fourth since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) made many significant, but temporary, changes to the individual income tax code to lower tax rates, widen brackets, increase the standard deduction and child tax credit, and more.
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At the end of 2025, the individual tax provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) expire all at once. Without congressional action, most taxpayers will see a notable tax increase relative to current policy in 2026.
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If reelected, President Trump would drastically escalate the trade war he started during his first term. But what often goes unnoticed is President Biden’s role in continuing Trump’s first trade war. In fact, more tax revenue from the trade war tariffs has been collected under Biden than under Trump.
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The individual income tax is one of the most significant sources of revenue for state and local governments, generating approximately 24 percent of state and local tax collections in FY 2018.
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The international corporate tax changes in President Biden’s tax plan would increase tax rates on domestic income more than on foreign income, resulting in a net increase in profit shifting out of the US, according to our Multinational Tax Model.
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Economic research and Tax Foundation modeling indicate there is a negative trade-off between progressive taxes on capital income—such as the wealth tax, minimum book tax on corporate income, and a higher corporate tax rate—and economic growth.
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The Biden administration has argued for raising the corporate tax rate to offset the drop in federal corporate revenues following the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017, claiming it did not lead to more corporate investment as advertised. Although corporate revenues did drop following this tax reform, the ensuing increase in corporate investment far exceeds these revenue losses.
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The economic evidence shows that travelers and tourists are sensitive to price changes for rental cars and adjust their behavior to avoid the tax, harming state economies and the travel sector right as the industry is trying to recover from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
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Traditionally, revenue dedicated to infrastructure spending has been raised through taxes on motor fuel, license fees, and tolls, but revenue from motor fuel has proven less effective over the last few decades.
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The method by which a country allows businesses to account for inventories can significantly impact a business’s taxable income. When prices are rising, as is usually the case due to factors like inflation, LIFO is the preferred method because it allows inventory costs to be closer to true costs at the time of sale.
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Although Tax Day has been pushed back this year, mid-April is still a good occasion to take a look at tax collections in the United States. Because differing state populations can make overall comparisons difficult, today’s state tax map shows state and local tax collections per capita in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
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Remote work is here to stay. Convenience rules can’t change that. What they can change is the decisions people make. Under this rule, those decisions may not be to Arkansas’s advantage.
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Simplifying the R&D credit, making it more accessible for smaller firms, and ensuring full cost recovery for R&D expenses by canceling the upcoming R&D amortization are three things policymakers should consider when trying to improve the tax code for R&D.
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On average, European OECD countries currently levy a corporate income tax rate of 21.7 percent. This is below the worldwide average which, measured across 177 jurisdictions, was 23.9 percent in 2020.
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Several states are considering introducing or increasing taxes on vapor products to make up declining tax revenue from traditional tobacco products or to fill budget holes in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. However, lawmakers should approach the issue carefully because flawed excise tax design on vapor products could drive consumers back to more harmful combustible products like cigarettes.
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With so many federal changes occurring in such a short amount of time—including some federal provisions changing more than once and a major change to the treatment of UC income occurring in the middle of tax filing season—state legislators have faced the challenge of responding to these changes quickly in order to provide certainty to taxpayers.
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The legalization and taxation of recreational marijuana remains one of the hottest trends in state taxation.
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The ongoing pandemic has once again highlighted the importance of investment. To address the economic fallout of the pandemic, several OECD countries have temporarily accelerated depreciation schedules for various assets.
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We ought to be worried about the impact of corporate taxes on women, low-skilled workers, and younger workers, since they are the very workers who have been most impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. Raising the corporate tax rate would simply hurt them even more.
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Capital stock taxes are imposed on a business’s net worth (or accumulated wealth). As such, the tax tends to penalize investment and requires businesses to pay regardless of whether they make a profit in a given year, or ever.
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