Taxes at Every Level
Each level of government provides its own services and therefore levies its own taxes to generate revenue for these services.
Each level of government provides its own services and therefore levies its own taxes to generate revenue for these services.
In the spirit of change and improvement, it’s worth looking back to see which states have truly embraced tax competitiveness since 2020, and which ones have lagged behind.
6 min read
While the Council of DC is right to consider decoupling its tax code from several revenue-reducing provisions in the OBBBA, they should maintain conformity with the business expensing reforms that are strongly pro-growth, better align with sound tax principles, and primarily change the timing of revenues.
4 min read
The Supreme Court is deciding a case over whether the President can impose sweeping tax increases on imported goods. It’s a multi-trillion-dollar question with enormous implications for the US economy, taxpayers, and limitations on emergency powers.
4 min read
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.
122 min read
In 2025, the Texas legislature sought to make the state more competitive for small businesses by exempting a greater amount of business personal property from taxation, reducing compliance burdens at the cost of a trivial amount of revenue.
3 min read
Several goods have experienced notably large price increases, including apparel, coffee and tea, cameras, and furniture.
4 min read
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.
93 min read
Explore the IRS inflation-adjusted 2026 tax brackets, for which taxpayers will file tax returns in early 2027.
5 min read
How will recent federal tax changes affect you?
4 min read
Congress may have passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), but state lawmakers now face big choices. Most states link their tax codes to the federal system, meaning OBBBA’s provisions—good and bad—are about to ripple across state budgets.
Americans will spend almost 7.1 billion hours complying with IRS tax filing and reporting requirements in 2025. This is equal to 3.4 million full-time workers—almost the population of Los Angeles and nearly 38 times the workforce the IRS employed in FY 2024—doing nothing but tax return paperwork for a full year.
9 min read
We estimate the OBBBA will reduce federal taxes on average for individual taxpayers in every state. Across all individual tax filers throughout the US, the average tax cut per taxpayer will be over $3,700 in 2026.
4 min read
While the One Big Beautiful Bill Act tries to buoy manufacturing, President Trump’s tariffs are an anvil dragging the sector down.
As US businesses and consumers face higher costs of goods due to the Trump tariffs, Senator Hawley (R-MO) has introduced legislation to rebate tariff revenue to provide financial relief. The proposal takes a similar approach to the stimulus checks issued during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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
Our experts explain how this major tax legislation may affect you and how policymakers can better improve the tax code.
24 min read
However states choose to respond to other tax provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, they should conform to the pro-growth provisions, which represent a marked improvement in the corporate tax code.
12 min read
However well-intended they may be, sales tax holidays remain the same as they always have been—ineffective and inefficient.
16 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.