Budget Reconciliation: Tracking the 2025 Trump Tax Cuts
President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law on July 4, 2025.
18 min readLearn more about budget reconciliation and explore our research and analysis of the latest budget reconciliation tax proposals. Our experts explain what budget reconciliation is, how it works, and the role that politics will play in it for the 119th Congress as well as President Trump‘s policy agenda. You can also launch our Reconciliation Tracker
President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law on July 4, 2025.
18 min read
Our experts explain how this major tax legislation may affect you and how policymakers can better improve the tax code.
24 min read
Our analysis of the major tax provisions included in the OBBBA finds it will increase long-run GDP by 0.7 percent. The major tax provisions will reduce federal tax revenue by nearly $5.2 trillion between 2025 and 2034, on a conventional basis.
12 min read
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act makes many of the individual tax cuts and reforms of the TCJA permanent. It improves upon the TCJA by making expensing for R&D and equipment permanent. However, for the most part, it does not include further structural reforms, and instead introduces many new, narrow tax breaks to the code, adding complexity and raising revenue costs.
7 min read
Congress is racing to pass the One Big Beautiful Tax Bill before the July 4 deadline. In this episode, Kyle Hulehan and Erica York break down what just happened over the weekend, what’s actually in the bill, and what comes next as the House and Senate try to reconcile their differences.
Our preliminary analysis finds the tax provisions increase long-run GDP by 0.8 percent and reduce federal tax revenue by $4.0 trillion from 2025 through 2034 on a conventional basis before added interest costs.
9 min read
As the current tax package stands, the House’s use of temporary policy is leaving most of the economic growth opportunities on the table.
2 min read
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.
4 min read
Unless Congress acts, Americans are in for a tax hike in 2026.
3 min read
As lawmakers work through the reconciliation process, permanently enacting improvements to deductions for capital investment and research and development (R&D) costs will create an economically powerful package.
8 min read
If Congress allows the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) to expire as scheduled, most aspects of the individual income tax would undergo substantial changes, resulting in more than 62 percent of tax filers experiencing tax increases in 2026.
3 min read
Permanently extending the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would boost long-run economic output by 1.1 percent, the capital stock by 0.7 percent, wages by 0.5 percent, and hours worked by 847,000 full-time equivalent jobs.
6 min read
Tax simplification has two aspects. The first is a code without a mess of targeted provisions for various social policy goals. The second is a code with provisions that are simple and easy to comply with. The bill succeeds at the first, but fails at the second.
7 min read
Tax legislation in 2025 may have good reason to address international corporate income taxes, because of scheduled changes slated to go into effect or because of international developments like the Pillar Two agreement.
63 min read
As Republicans look for ways to offset the budgetary cost of extending the expiring provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) and potentially enacting other tax cuts, the latest estimates indicate several trillion dollars could be raised by reducing tax credits and other preferences in the tax code.
5 min read
If lawmakers are serious about pro-growth policies and fiscal responsibility, they will need to put policies forward that achieve those goals. Simply adjusting the baseline doesn’t reduce actual deficits in the coming years.
7 min read
Lawmakers should prioritize pro-growth tax policies and use the least economically damaging offsets to make the legislation fiscally responsible. If lawmakers choose to use C-SALT, they should carefully consider the economic trade-off with permanent, pro-growth tax cuts that support investment and innovation in the US.
7 min read
Fiscal pressures are likely to weigh heavily on lawmakers as they craft a tax reform package. That increased pressure could result in well-designed tax reform that prioritizes economic growth, simplicity, and stability, or it could encourage budget gimmicks and economically harmful offsets. Lawmakers should avoid the latter.
8 min read
What happens to your taxes when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expires on January 1, 2026? In this episode, we explore the potential tax hikes facing millions of Americans and the debate over measuring the budgetary impacts of extending tax cuts.
In a perilous economic and fiscal environment, with instability created by Trump’s trade war and publicly held debt on track to surpass the highest levels ever recorded within five years, a lot rides on how Republicans navigate tax and spending reforms in reconciliation.
6 min read
While capping C-SALT has superficial appeal in perceived parity with personal limits, it rests on flawed assumptions about the nature of individual and corporate income taxes.
7 min read
The House Budget Committee has released a budget resolution that specifies large reductions in both taxes and spending over the next decade, paving the way to extend the expiring provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) and potentially cut other taxes.
6 min read
The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was the largest corporate tax reform in a generation, lowering the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, temporarily allowing full expensing for short-lived assets (referred to as bonus depreciation), and overhauling the international tax code.
6 min read
Pro-growth tax reform that does not add to the deficit will require tough choices, but whether to raise the corporate tax rate is not one of them. If lawmakers want to craft fiscally responsible and pro-growth tax reform, a higher corporate tax rate simply does not fit into the puzzle.
3 min read
What will the future of tax policy look like? In this episode, we dive into the critical challenges and opportunities looming on the horizon, especially with major tax cuts set to expire, which could increase taxes for 62 percent of filers.
Republican policymakers in Congress are considering options to raise revenue as part of their expected legislative package in 2025. One such option involves raising the tax rate on university endowments first put in place as part of the TCJA in 2017.
4 min read
Tax policy is almost always a balancing act between the tax rate – how much someone pays – and the tax base – who or what is being taxed.
The tariffs now in effect threaten to offset much of the GDP growth from the tax cuts, while falling short of paying for them.
3 min read
Our analysis of the major tax provisions included in the OBBBA finds it will increase long-run GDP by 0.7 percent. The major tax provisions will reduce federal tax revenue by nearly $5.2 trillion between 2025 and 2034, on a conventional basis.
12 min read
In this episode, we break down what the OBBBA did, walk through our projections, and zoom out to other defining fights of 2025: Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, the Supreme Court challenge over presidential tariff power, and the growing wave of property tax revolts across the states.
How will recent federal tax changes affect you?
4 min read
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.
39 min read
Who are Trump Accounts really for, and will they actually help families save? With yet another savings vehicle added to an already confusing system, do these accounts solve a real problem—or just add more complexity?
Our experts explain how this major tax legislation may affect you and how policymakers can better improve the tax code.
24 min read
If the federal government really wanted to make saving more accessible for taxpayers, it would swap the proposal for Trump Accounts to replace the complicated mess of savings accounts currently available with universal savings accounts.
5 min read
The One Big Beautiful Bill is now law—but what does it actually do? In this episode, we break down the new tax law’s key provisions, including who benefits, who doesn’t, and what it means for the economy, tax certainty, and the federal deficit.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act makes many of the individual tax cuts and reforms of the TCJA permanent. It improves upon the TCJA by making expensing for R&D and equipment permanent. However, for the most part, it does not include further structural reforms, and instead introduces many new, narrow tax breaks to the code, adding complexity and raising revenue costs.
7 min read
President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law on July 4, 2025.
18 min read
The increased senior deduction with the phaseout would deliver a larger tax cut to lower-middle- and middle-income taxpayers compared to exempting all Social Security benefits from income taxation and would not weaken the trust funds as much. But given the temporary nature of the policy, it would increase the deficit-impact of the reconciliation bills without boosting long-run economic growth.
3 min read
Lawmakers should consider maintaining QBAI and applying the several billion dollars from the Senate’s change toward other pro-growth international tax reforms instead.
6 min read
Congress is racing to pass the One Big Beautiful Tax Bill before the July 4 deadline. In this episode, Kyle Hulehan and Erica York break down what just happened over the weekend, what’s actually in the bill, and what comes next as the House and Senate try to reconcile their differences.
Lawmakers are right to be concerned about deficits and economic growth. The best path to address those concerns is to ensure OBBB provides permanent full expensing of capital investment, avoids inefficient tax cuts, and offsets remaining revenue losses by closing tax loopholes and reducing spending.
8 min read
The Senate draft overall makes more changes to international tax policy than the House draft. On net the changes are positive.
8 min read
The Senate’s version of the OBBB restores the benefit of avoiding the SALT deduction cap with PTETs for all pass-through businesses, while placing new limits on the extent of the workarounds.
6 min read
The House-passed reconciliation bill leaves out Trump’s promise to eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits, opting instead to expand the standard deduction for seniors.
The final House bill makes impressive cuts to the IRA green energy tax credits, but it does so in part by introducing more complexity.
5 min read
President’s Trump’s policies would throw high-tax states a life raft as they swim against the tide—before potentially hitting all states with a tariff-induced economic tsunami that could force lawmakers’ hands and reverse recent tax relief.