Stay informed with quick and accessible analysis of today's top tax policy topics. Read Tax Foundation's Tax Policy Blog for insight from our experts on tax policies across the US and abroad.
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The Reform UK proposal to exempt overtime pay from income tax—framed as a “hard work bonus”—may be politically appealing, but it’s a flawed idea that undermines economic fairness, distorts labor markets, and jeopardizes tax revenues.
4 min read
Illinois plans to impose a complicated, legally fraught new social media tax based on a few pages of confused, contradictory, and almost laughably incomplete legislative text embedded in the new budget.
10 min read
While a proposal to phase down property taxes on the primary residences of Florida homeowners may grab headlines, it risks severely undermining the competitiveness of Florida’s overall tax structure and leaving the state worse off.
7 min read
Policies that increase the tax burden on high earners makes states less competitive, increase revenue volatility, discourage investment, and risk accelerating outmigration of talent and capital. Many top-earners are already leaving high-tax states for Florida, North Carolina, and other low-tax jurisdictions.
9 min read
Publicly held debt is projected to rise to a new record high of 106 percent of GDP within the next four years and continue to rise to 120 percent by 2036 and 175 percent by 2056.
8 min read
Oregon’s Extended Producer Responsibility program to incentivize recycling does so with a complicated and unprincipled series of regulations, including confidentially determined tax rates on various materials derived from a revenue goal.
8 min read
Alcohol taxes in Illinois have been broken for decades, and the state is now considering a “fix” that moves policy in the wrong direction.
6 min read
Military action around the Strait of Hormuz has increased global oil prices. In response, policymakers around the world have put forward proposals targeting oil and gas producers who are seeing profits increase in the short run from the spike in prices.
5 min read
A well-designed tax trigger can be a highly valuable tool for lawmakers seeking both tax reform and revenue stability. States should embrace established baselines adjusted for inflation, use collections instead of projections as benchmarks, and prioritize contributions to their rainy day funds.
7 min read
During a recent special session called by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R), Arkansas policymakers cut the state’s top individual and corporate income tax rates, continuing Arkansas’s years-long tax reform streak and making the Razorback State one of five states to cut income taxes so far in 2026.
5 min read
In response to surging gas prices, President Trump and several lawmakers have proposed suspending the federal gas tax via a gas tax holiday. Gas tax holidays have appeal across the political aisle, but suspending the federal gas tax is a uniquely ill-suited policy for addressing rising prices.
3 min read
Academic research has continually found that making alternative nicotine products to cigarettes more expensive results in fewer smokers switching to less harmful products.
7 min read
Rental cars are some of the most heavily taxed transactions in the US. Rather than levying additional taxes on rental cars by trying to export the tax burden to nonresidents, municipalities should enact principled, neutral transportation tax policy that is unlikely to discourage visitors, tourists, and other economic activity.
5 min read
Two bills in Oklahoma and Louisiana shift towards a weight-based system for taxing moist snuff tobacco (MST), a policy that ensures neutral taxation across products and less revenue volatility.
4 min read
A new bill introduced in the Minnesota House seeks to tax non-real assets, imposing an annual tax of 1 percent on “taxable wealth” exceeding $10 million for individuals and trusts from tax year 2026 onward.
6 min read
Shifting Germany’s tax mix away from labor to consumption remains a sound policy route to strengthen the country’s labor supply, but further eroding the VAT base with preferential rates for selected goods and services would counteract this goal by depleting the extra revenue for labor tax cuts while providing less-targeted relief for low-income households.
6 min read
A pair of bills introduced in the Minnesota House—HF 3954 (overtime) and HF 3955 (tips)—would further erode the state’s tax climate by exempting certain overtime pay and tip income from Minnesota’s income tax.
5 min read
California lawmakers are considering mandating worldwide combined reporting, bringing back a policy the state abandoned in the 1980s due to strong pushback from international trading partners and the federal government. The policy failed to work as intended then and doesn’t make any better sense now.
8 min read
The total amount refunded as of the sixth week of reporting is running ahead of the past filing season by nearly $23 billion at $202.6 billion compared to $179.5 billion, while the average refund is up 10.9 percent at $3,571.
3 min read
The proposed California wealth tax could be levied on founders’ voting interests in their companies, despite the initiative’s drafters insisting otherwise.
6 min read