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taxation
World's Richest Person Elon Musk Seeks Corporate Welfare for Texas Data Center
"I hate the way they are taking advantage of Texas, and that stops when I'm governor," Democratic Texas Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa said of AI companies' proliferating data centers.
Nov 10, 2026
Elon Musk, the world's wealthiest person, is seeking a property tax break for a proposed $24 billion SpaceX data center and gas-fired power plant in South Texas, where residents are mobilizing against the multicentibillionaire's expanding industrial footprint.
Politico reported Tuesday that commissioners in the border town of Starbase—which has around 500 residents and was incorporated in 2021 via a petition from SpaceX employees—is set to consider a proposed property tax abatement and economic development agreement for the company's facilities during a December 9 meeting. Two of the town's three commissioners are also SpaceX employees.
The data center and power plant project would occupy more than 400 acres near the Port of Brownsville, on land that the city of Brownsville agreed to de-annex in August at SpaceX's request.
In that deal, Brownsville agreed to remove 444.45 acres from its jurisdiction in exchange for SpaceX contributing up to $220 million toward regional water and wastewater infrastructure. The deal includes an initial $40 million payment and six subsequent quarterly payouts of $30 million.
Disannexation became a critical issue following Brownsville commissioners' unanimous vote last week in favor of a 90-day moratorium on permits for data center construction.
According to KRGV, SpaceX vice president Sheila McCorkle told Brownsville's six commissioners the company wanted the land removed from the city's jurisdiction to allow infrastructure development "quicker and more economically" than if it remained part of Brownsville. McCorkle also touted the move as an opportunity to boost growth and help the water supply in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, a semi-arid region suffering a severe water crisis.
That crisis is largely due to overconsumption of water—a resource data centers require in massive quantities. SpaceX has projected that its Starbase operations will eventually require approximately 2 million gallons of water per day.
Many local residents oppose both the proposed tax break and the data center/power plant project.
"Please pass a full 180-day data center moratorium. And please remember that this is supposed to be a community-led environmental task force," South Texas Environmental Justice Center co-founder Bekah Hinojosa told commissioners during a November 4 Brownsville City Commission meeting.
"You need to make sure that you're taking every possible step to ensure meaningful public input throughout this data center moratorium," she continued. "We don't know what SpaceX is building on the 444 acres. It's frankly terrifying."
Attorney Jacqueline Morales told the commissioners: "The moratorium will not make us forget that you de-annexed 444 acres of land to SpaceX, which is now building a data center. This community has been sounding the alarm for months, only for this commission to ignore us and pretend like it knows better."
"You either work to protect residents of Brownsville or you don't," Morales added. "There is no middle ground here."
The Brownsville dispute is part of the nationwide backlash against data centers, which consume enormous quantities of electricity and water while frequently seeking taxpayer-funded incentives.
Musk has met similar resistance in Louisiana, where Republican Gov. Jeff Landry's administration has offered SpaceX an estimated $27.5 billion incentive package to construct a massive launch facility on 125,000 acres of coastal land in Vermilion Parish. According to the Louisiana Illuminator, nearly $24 billion of the package consists of a 25-year property tax exemption.
The proposed deal has outraged many local residents, more than 1,000 of whom submitted comments to the Federal Aviation Administration expressing concerns about the project's environmental consequences, including damage to fragile wetlands, wildlife habitats, and the rapidly eroding Louisiana coastline.
"I'm not anti-SpaceX," small farmer Karol Bourque told The Current in September. "It's all the secrecy, the NDAs, the laws protecting all these powerful people and companies."
Ironically, Musk relocated SpaceX and other companies from California to Texas in recent years, seeking lower taxes and less regulation. During the 2026 midterm election cycle, he reportedly spent around $224 million supporting Texas Republican candidates and political committees, including Ken Paxton for the US Senate and Greg Abbott for governor.
Both lost amid Democrats' historic "blue tsunami." Democratic Sen.-elect James Talarico has explicitly targeted Musk's extreme wealth.
"We should tax trillionaires out of existence," he declared last year, warning that "the reason poverty exists in the wealthiest country on earth isn't because we can't feed the poor—it's because we can't satisfy the rich."
Abbott was beaten by Democrat Gina Hinojosa, who has called for a moratorium on new data center approvals and has pledged to end the enormous tax giveaways offered to the artificial intelligence industry.
"When I am governor I will issue a moratorium—a ban—on all data center approvals until laws can be passed by the Legislature to protect Texans," Hinojosa said in October.
She also pledged to end the enormous tax giveaways offered to the artificial intelligence industry.
"It is not that I hate data centers. I hate the way they are taking advantage of Texas, and that stops when I'm governor," she said.
Democrats also won control of the Texas House of Representatives. But even before the "blue tsunami," momentum was building in Austin to reverse the state’s formerly welcoming approach to AI data centers. Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike have signaled support for rolling back tax breaks for the industry in the upcoming legislative session. Monday marked the opening of the bill-filing period ahead of the session, which is scheduled to begin on January 12.
Among the proposals, state Sen. Judith Zaffirini (D-21) introduced legislation barring counties and other local governments from granting property tax abatements to data center operators. Two additional bills filed in the Texas House would eliminate sales tax exemptions on electricity consumed by data centers and restrict counties’ ability to enter into nondisclosure agreements with the companies.
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California Billionaire Tax Headed for Defeat After $300+ Million Ad Blitz by Superrich
"If you spend enough on ads, you really can get people to vote against their own interests," lamented one observer.
Nov 04, 2026
Proposition 40, the California proposal for a one-time 5% tax on the state's billionaires, appeared headed for defeat Wednesday after a spending blitz exceeding $300 million by some of the state's wealthiest residents helped turn a potentially landmark effort to make plutocrats pay their fare share into one of the most expensive ballot fights in state history.
With around 60% of expected votes counted, Prop 40—also known as the California Billionaire Tax—was losing by a 56% to 44% margin, according to CalMatters and The Associated Press, which had not yet projected the final outcome due to the significant number of uncounted ballots.
The measure, which is sponsored by Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, would impose a one-time 5% tax on the wealth of California residents and trusts worth more than $1 billion. Affecting approximately 200 billionaires, Prop 40 would generate tens of billions of dollars to help fund healthcare, food assistance, and public education programs facing funding pressures, including cuts resulting from President Donald Trump's attacks on Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and other social safety net lifelines.
Polling showed a majority of California voters—55%—supporting Prop 40 last December, buoyed by the backing of prominent national figures like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), and former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich.
In early 2026, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and other tech billionaires began pouring money into efforts to oppose the initiative and support competing ballot measures, Propositions 41 and 42, which were specifically designed to undermine or nullify Prop 40.
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom also came out against Prop 40. Critics accused the potential 2028 presidential contender of trying to bamboozle voters with a plan for a national billionaire income tax, knowing that very rich people actually have relatively little income when compared with their investments and other assets that would be subject to taxation under Prop 40.
By June, Prop 40 was polling under 50%. By October, with a deluge of anti-Prop 40 ads flooding the airwaves and internet, support barely topped 40%.
According to CalMatters, billionaires and business interests spent $316.7 million on the campaign against Prop 40, including spending on Props 41 and 42. Most of that money was raised by Building a Better California, a political action committee funded by prominent tech executives, venture capitalists, and business leaders.
As Common Dreams reported Tuesday, opponents of Prop 40 outspent supporters of the measure by a staggering 250: 1 margin.
"We won’t need much analysis to identify what swayed voters," Yousef Baig wrote for CalMatters. "The playbook for defeating the tax was simple: Stoke economic fears and confuse Californians."
Baig continued:
Prop 40’s authors may have even doomed their own campaign with an amendment provision that opponents seized on. If a supermajority—two-thirds of the Legislature—wanted to retool the tax, they could, so long as “the statute is consistent with and furthers the purposes of the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act.” Opponents created ads proclaiming politicians would use this clause to come after our retirement accounts.
It lit up social media. Some Californians are so cynical that they figured 7 out of 10 state lawmakers would vote to extend a billionaire tax to people with fewer zeros and commas invested. It also made one of Brin’s countermeasures, Proposition 42, an easy sell. It would bar taxes on personal property and its passage would make it almost impossible to enact a similar tax in the future. It was ahead in the count Wednesday morning.
"If there is a glimmer of hope, it is that Brin and other billionaires stepped into the sunshine," Baig said. "The record spending and attack ads and political gamesmanship was done out in the open. Many Californians took notice, whether they backed Prop 40 or not."
"The state’s billionaires may have avoided this wealth tax," he added, "but voters won’t forget how some of the richest people on the planet behaved when fairness was on the ballot."
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The Future of New Hampshire's Public Schools Is on the Ballot
Our students deserve so much better than the chaos the legislature has thrown at our public schools. It’s vital that communities across New Hampshire vote no on the tax cap on November 3.
Nov 02, 2026
On Election Day, New Hampshire residents will face a ballot initiative that aims to place a tax cap on every public school district in the state. Similar proposals to cap property taxes or eliminate them for certain property owners are on the ballots this November in multiple states. But regardless of where the initiatives are being considered, if successful, the financial consequences will threaten school sports, extracurriculars, and even basic academic programming statewide. In the case of New Hampshire, the consequences will be especially negative to schools, families, and children.
At least since the Covid-19 pandemic, New Hampshire school districts have struggled to stay afloat. In September 2026, the town of Milton, New Hampshire was shocked by revelations of a $2.5 million hole in its school district’s budget. Nearby, the Farmington School District was forced to reduce teaching positions in the 2025-2026 school year due to a growing budget deficit. In the western part of the state, Claremont schools cut teaching positions and students washed cars to raise funds. At the same time, New Hampshire launched a universal voucher program to the tune of $102 million, sending a record amount of public money to private schools.
Historically, New Hampshire has largely left local communities to fund public schools on their own. In the 2024-2025 academic year, according to data from the National Education Association, New Hampshire ranked 50th in the share of state revenue contributed to public schools, at 28%. While some argue that New Hampshire has maintained level funding in real tax dollars, the state has simply not made budget increases on pace with rising costs, leaving local taxpayers holding the bill.
The new approach intrudes on that time-honored process of collective decision-making through deliberation. Instead, it places school funding into the hyper-partisan environment of the midterms.
In 2026, a superior court ruled the state had not been fulfilling its constitutional responsibility to provide adequate funding to public schools. New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella is appealing the case to the state’s supreme court, where he is also attempting to overturn the landmark 1993 case that established the state’s responsibility to provide fair funding to all public schools.
In this context, a local tax cap for schools would be detrimental for students and communities in general. While New Hampshire does not allow for statewide referendums on its ballots, legislators supporting the tax cap circumvented this with clever legislation. In 2025, Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed HB 1300 into law, a measure that automatically places a tax cap question on the ballot of every municipality in the state in 2026 and in 2028.
The ballot measure was challenged on multiple fronts in court, including on the lack of clear constitutional standing and on account of being difficult to understand. The state supreme court, which has been plagued by scandals—including the chief justice’s resignation in September over an ethics violation—ultimately rejected these challenges.
The tax cap will require a three-fifths approval of local voters to go into effect. If enacted, it would limit local control of the schools with a tax cap that is linked to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which, by nature of being tied to non-salary costs, is unpredictable on a year-to-year basis and can easily be outpaced by school costs, especially with rising fuel prices. It would also impose a limit on administrative spending as a proportion of the total school budget.
The effort to institute a tax cap defies New Hampshire’s long history of local control. It’s a tradition that brings residents of towns across the state together for town halls each spring, where school budgets are debated publicly. The process honors the citizens’ right to petition and write warrant articles that meet the specific needs of the locality, including placing limits on spending, if that is the collective will of the people. The new approach intrudes on that time-honored process of collective decision-making through deliberation. Instead, it places school funding into the hyper-partisan environment of the midterms.
Marianne Doane, who has taught in Milton for more than 40 years, is dedicated to its youth. As the president of the local teachers association, Doane has worked across differences to build support for her students and their education. She has organized babysitting services during town meetings to help provide childcare for parents who otherwise might not be able to participate. She has encouraged families to vote by sponsoring civic engagement programming for children outside of polling places. One year, she facilitated an activity for kids to design “I Voted” stickers and handed them out at the polls. In an interview, Doane shakes her head in disbelief about the tenuous position of the schools in her small town.
“Right now if the tax cap passes, the oil bill is $51,000 and the anticipated budget for special education is $500,000,” she says. “In order to come up with that amount, we are looking at losing 12 teachers. We only have 12 teachers at the elementary school. Who’s going to be left to teach?”
Down the road in Farmington, school administrator and veteran classroom teacher Kimberly McGlinchey is running for state representative. Her campaign is centered on defending public schools and addressing the school funding crisis. The district she seeks to represent is split between two towns as part of a legislative gerrymander.
Undeterred by the challenges of running a school and running for office, McGlinchey is clear-eyed about what the tax cap will mean for students.
“The problem with the school property tax cap is it does not consider local needs,” McGlinchey tells The Progressive. “The inflation rate of fuel, food, and materials has increased far more than the CPI. This means there will be a direct impact on programming and staffing that affects student learning and instruction, depleting the quality of New Hampshire students’ education. Limiting the funds without proper budgeting in relationship to needs will ultimately leave schools shortchanged.” McGlinchey has taken this message to the streets, most recently at the town center.
Some communities, like the town of Franklin, New Hampshire, have had tax caps in place for decades. Franklin teacher and union leader Jennifer Weaver says the town struggles to recruit and retain teachers, adding another burden to the long-term staff.
“We’ve been under a tax cap since the 1980s,” Weaver says. “Our [current] tax cap is strangling our community and school.”
Weaver’s warning about the harm of tax caps must be heeded before it’s too late. It’s all part of a multipronged attack against public schools over the last six years that includes the expansion of school voucher programs that funnel public money to private schools.
Our students deserve so much better than the chaos the legislature has thrown at our public schools. It’s vital that communities across New Hampshire vote no on the tax cap on November 3, and learn more about the systematic effort underway to erode public education.
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After Trump Tax Cuts, Major Corporations Pay Less than Ever
Who bears the cost of these giant companies paying such a pittance? The American people.
Nov 02, 2026
President Trump and his allies in Congress, across two presidential terms, have broken the federal corporate income tax.
They reduced the statutory tax rate to its lowest level since 1939 and lavishly exempted an enormous share of corporate income from taxation. The results?
Last year, the largest profitable corporations in the country paid the smallest share of their profits in federal income taxes since the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the organization I head, began analyzing this over 40 years ago. Extraordinarily profitable companies paid very little and, shockingly, 114 corporations paid nothing at all.
It is likely that most of these corporate CEOs didn’t break any laws. They don’t have to. Their profligate campaign spending elects candidates who are beholden to them.
Who bears the cost of corporations paying such a pittance? The American people.
Our findings should alarm anyone who thinks enormous companies ought to contribute to the government of the country that enables them to profit so much. The report takes the Fortune 1000 and S&P 500 lists of the largest U.S. corporations and examines the 706 of them that reported profits and disclosed enough information to allow analysis of their 2025 federal income tax.
What stands out is not only the number of huge entities paying little or nothing, but the household names.
American Airlines, 3M, Citigroup, CVS, Doordash, Duke Energy, GoDaddy, H&R Block, Hasbro, Honeywell, Live Nation, Palantir, Southwest Airlines, Tesla, United Airlines, and Walt Disney are just some of the 114 companies that paid no federal income tax in 2025.
It wasn’t because they had a bad year. Tesla paid no tax on profits of $5.7 billion, giving Elon Musk his money’s worth from hundreds of millions in political spending. Citigroup paid no tax on profits of $4.4 billion. CVS paid nothing on $8 billion. It’s a nice deal if you can get it.
Along with no-tax corporations, there are plenty of low-tax ones: On top of the 114 zero tax companies, 144 more paid less than 7 percent on their income. Their average rate was 3.1 percent.
This list includes Amazon, AT&T, Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, ExxonMobil, J.P. Morgan-Chase, Johnson & Johnson, Meta, Microsoft, News Corp., Uber, and many more. Again... profitable companies all.
On average, the 706 corporations in the ITEP report paid 10.4 percent of their profits in federal corporate income tax in 2025, the lowest level in at least 40 years. One reason is that the legal rate is lower than it’s been in over 80 years, down from 35 percent to 21 percent in President Trump’s first term. On top of that are tax subsidies, the breaks that exempt huge profits so corporations pay even less than 21 percent of their profits in taxes.
Every company in our study was profitable. The 706 corporations reported $1.88 trillion in domestic profits last year. At the pre-Trump rate of 35 percent, they would have paid $658 billion in taxes. Between the reduction in the rate and the subsidies, these corporations saved more than $460 billion.
The corporate tax slashing is happening even as federal spending cuts bludgeon our communities.
It is likely that most of these corporate CEOs didn’t break any laws. They don’t have to. Their profligate campaign spending elects candidates who are beholden to them. Their lobbying dictates what elected officials should do. And they profit from the laws that Congress and the President deliver.
The $460 billion in taxes saved by these 706 corporations could have been used to benefit the American people and tackle some of our biggest policy problems. It could have bought Medicaid coverage for more than 55 million people, Social Security for more than 18 million retired workers, or childcare for more than 34 million children.
The corporate tax slashing is happening even as federal spending cuts bludgeon our communities. While Trump’s 2025 tax law will cut $1 trillion in taxes for the richest 1 percent over the next decade, it will also chop $1 trillion from healthcare, forcing higher health insurance costs for Americans and eliminating insurance entirely for millions. Social Security will be insolvent by 2032 unless Congress allocates more resources. And childcare remains a cost-prohibitive essential for young working families.
Enough is enough. Inequality is soaring, prices are high, and instead of combatting the affordability crisis, this Congress and this president are passing laws that enrich the richest and abandon the rest of us.
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Sanders: Billionaires Fighting Prop 40 Would 'Rather Poor Kids With Cancer Die Than Pay a Little More in Taxes'
The senator noted that "billionaires in California are spending $333 million to wage a war" on the proposed one-time tax.
Oct 27, 2026
As one Golden State tech billionaire suggested he wouldn't move away even if voters passed the California Billionaire Tax Act that he opposes, progressive US Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday took aim at the wealthy taxpayers working to defeat Proposition 40.
"Billionaires in California are spending $333 million to wage a war," Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote on social media. "Against what? Homelessness? No. Cancer? No. Child poverty? No. They're waging war against a 5% billionaire wealth tax. They'd rather poor kids with cancer die than pay a little more in taxes. That is obscene."
Sanders, a former Democratic presidential candidate who has campaigned in California for the ballot measure that would impose a one-time 5% tax on the state's billionaires to offset healthcare funding cuts, was citing contributions to Building a Better California, a group created in January.
"Eighty or so donors have provided more than $333 million to Building a Better California, state records show, making it among the best-funded political efforts in California history," The New York Times reported Tuesday. "The donor list is a who's who of tech celebrities: the Google co-founder Sergey Brin; the former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt; the Stripe chief executive Patrick Collison; the legendary investor John Doerr."
Abby Lunardini, a spokesperson for the group, told the Times that "our supporters have created companies, entirely new industries, and hundreds of thousands of jobs here in California, and they want our state to remain the place where the future is built and where people can still afford to live, dream big, and succeed."
Lunardini claimed the wealth tax would "permanently damage the state's budget, tax base, and economy," though dozens of multimillionaire Californians have signed an open letter supporting the one-time wealth tax, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg—one of the richest men in the world—is preparing to potentially pay it, and Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey said Monday that he won't leave the state.
TechCrunch reported on his latest comments, in which Luckey—whose defense company won key US military contracts after he was announced as one of the leaders of a new Pentagon project on the "future of warfare"—made clear that he opposes Prop 40:
"I think that this tax act, if you can call it a tax, is going to cause a lot of problems. It’s causing a lot of people to run who I don’t want to be running. It’s going to cause companies that I work with to leave the state, which is a problem for me. As of right now, though, I’m not running. I am staying. I think California is something special. I want to fight for California," Luckey said during an invite-only press conference on Monday.
He added that he's felt pressure from other billionaires to declare his intention to leave.
"This has been a point of friction between me and some of my other billionaire friends," he said. "They've said things like: 'Palmer, you have to have solidarity for us. You can't enable these really bad policies. If you stay and if you don't leave, it's going to show them that there's no consequences.' I empathize with that argument, but it's not one that I'm going to participate in right now because I still believe that we can fix things."
Luckey has publicly sparred with US Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)—who, like Sanders, supports Prop 40. Leading political opponents in the state include term-limited Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who's expected to run for president in 2028, and former US Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, a Democrat running to replace the governor.
Estimates vary on how much the tax—which would apply to any billionaire residing in the state as of January 1, 2026—could cost the richest Californians, if approved by voters in next week's midterm elections.
Forbes pointed to one of them on Tuesday: "$104 billion. That's how much economists Jasper Boll, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman estimate California's billionaires would owe if Proposition 40 is enacted, according to an analysis by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Saez and Zucman helped draft the tax proposal."
Ramesh Ponnuru, National Review editor and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, noted in a Tuesday column at The Washington Post—owned by Jeff Bezos, another one of the world's richest men—that "a new study by Benjamin Jaros and Joshua Rauh, two economists affiliated with the Hoover Institution, challenges that projection."
After trying to "account for the uncertainty over whether taxes can be collected from other billionaires, such as the ones who have left since the beginning of the year and may thus have a legal case for escaping the tax," Ponnuru summarized, those economists estimated Prop 40 would generate around $30 billion. The columnist also acknowledged that Zucman "has issued a barrage of attacks on that paper."
Specifically, Zucman called it "spectacularly misleading" and explained "its crucial flaw," which is that "they assume that billionaires will leave permanently, frightened by the prospects of an annual wealth tax."
"Let's be clear: This is a highly inappropriate way to model the effect of Prop 40 on taxpayer behavior. For one, it's a basic violation of rational expectations, a cornerstone of modern economics," Zucman said.
In Jaros and Rauh's world, "the billionaires act irrationally: They respond to a policy that does not exist and will never exist," he added. "Economics students around the world are taught this is not an appropriate way to model behavior—but apparently in this context (fighting Prop 40) it's OK."
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Largest US Corporations Paid Lowest-Ever Tax Rate in 2025 Thanks to Trump and GOP: Study
"At a time when lawmakers claim the country cannot afford investments in families and communities, some of the most profitable corporations in American history are paying little or nothing in federal income taxes."
Oct 22, 2026
Some of the biggest US corporations paid an effective federal income tax rate of just 10.4% last year as Republican legislation passed by President Donald Trump disproportionately benefited businesses and the superrich while eviscerating key social programs, a study published Thursday revealed.
The 706 corporations examined by the Washington, DC-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) reported a combined $1.88 trillion in US profits in 2025, yet paid less than half the statutory federal corporate income tax rate of 21%. Of those companies, the study found that 114 paid no federal income taxes at all.
Those 706 companies collectively paid current federal corporate income taxes equal to just 10.4% of that $1.88 trillion, "the lowest effective rate that ITEP has uncovered in over 40 years of analyzing corporate income taxes," according to the analysis.
The study attributes this to two major tax laws enacted under Trump: The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act—derided at the time as the "GOP Tax Scam"—slashed the statutory corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21%, while the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed by the Republican-controlled Congress and signed by the president last year expanded and made permanent the 2017 cuts.
NEW: U.S. corporations are paying the lowest tax rate seen in decades.706 major corporations collectively paid a federal income tax rate of just 10.4%, less than half the statutory rate.114 corporations paid zero.itep.org/corporate-ta...
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— ITEP (@itep.org) October 22, 2026 at 8:30 AM
"These findings show just how dramatically the corporate tax system has been tilted in favor of the nation’s wealthiest and most powerful companies,” ITEP senior fellow Matt Gardner, who co-authored the report, said in a statement.
“At a time when lawmakers claim the country cannot afford investments in families and communities, some of the most profitable corporations in American history are paying little or nothing in federal income taxes," he added. "This is not an accident. It is the predictable outcome of deliberate policy choices that have steadily eroded the corporate tax base."
Among the report's key findings:
- The 114 companies that paid no current federal income tax last year include Tesla, Walt Disney, CVS, Citigroup, United Airlines, and DoorDash;
- 258 corporations paid effective tax rates below 7%, or less than one-third of the statutory rate;
- Those 258 companies reported $683 billion in US profits but paid an effective federal income tax rate of just 1.7%;
- The 706 corporations studied received $198 billion in federal tax subsidies by paying less than the statutory 21% rate;
- They also benefited from an additional $263 billion in tax savings attributable to the 2017 reduction of the statutory rate from 35% to 21%; and
- Just 25 corporations accounted for more than half of the 2025 tax subsidies, with Alphabet ($18.9 billion), Microsoft ($18.7 billion), Amazon ($17.4 billion), and Meta ($13.9 billion) among the largest beneficiaries.
While proponents of subsidies claim they are necessary to encourage investment, the new study raises questions about why some of the nation's most profitable corporations should receive billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies while vital social programs upon which tens of millions of Americans rely, like Medicaid and food stamps, suffer historic cuts under Republican legislation.
“Congress has repeatedly chosen to expand tax breaks for corporations that are already extraordinarily profitable,” said Steve Wamhoff, ITEP's federal policy director and co-author of the report. “Rather than continuing to subsidize corporate investments and reward aggressive tax avoidance, lawmakers should close these loopholes and ensure that large corporations pay a meaningful share of their profits in taxes.”
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1.5 Million Latinos Lost Food Aid Since Trump Passed Tax Giveaway for the Rich: Analysis
“As is so often the case, working families and communities of color bear the brunt of Trump’s economic policies."
Oct 20, 2026
An analysis published Tuesday estimates that 1.5 million US Latinos have lost access to federal food assistance since the passage of President Donald Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the latest of numerous indicators of how the law's evisceration of the social safety net is hitting working-class families while delivering enormous benefits to the wealthy.
The analysis by Unrig Our Economy and Americans for Tax Fairness estimates that in seven states alone—Texas, Arizona, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Nebraska, and Iowa—771,687 Latinos have lost Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits since July 2025, when Trump signed the sweeping budget reconciliation package into law. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) contains the biggest cuts to SNAP and Medicaid in those programs' histories.
According to the analysis, Texas alone accounts for more than half of those losses, with an estimated 396,164 Latino residents losing food assistance, while Arizona has lost another 200,124 and New York has lost 92,816.
“The Republican tax law took food assistance away from more than 1.5 million Latinos to pay for tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations,” Leor Tal, campaign director for Unrig Our Economy, said in a statement. “Families are already struggling with the high cost of groceries and gas thanks to the war in Iran and tariffs. SNAP cuts make it even harder for Latino families—who are disproportionately impacted—to put food on the table.”
More broadly, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated earlier this year that SNAP enrollment fell by more than 5 million people between July 2025 and June 2026, while more than 1.5 million children lost assistance.
The OBBBA contains new SNAP qualification requirements for people experiencing homelessness, veterans, former foster youth, and older adults. The Trump administration says the new rules are meant to ensure that only the truly needy receive benefits. However, the more stringent requirements are harming some of the most vulnerable people, as compliance procedures have proved to be an exclusionary barrier to qualified aid applicants.
The SNAP cuts have fueled what the New York Federal Reserve Bank in May called a “remarkable increase in food insecurity, particularly among lower-educated and lower-income households and households with young children.”
“The results are in: Trump and his GOP allies in Congress cut critical nutrition assistance that helps millions of Latinos and working people across the country meet their basic needs—all to deliver historic tax giveaways to billionaires and business elites,” said Jodie Rubenstein, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness.
“As is so often the case, working families and communities of color bear the brunt of Trump’s economic policies," Rubenstein added. "We cannot allow billionaire wealth to grow unchecked while communities go hungry.”
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Top Economist Says Elon Musk Needs to 'Pay More Taxes,' Not Just Donate SpaceX Shares
"The American people don’t need billionaires making grand promises of generosity," said University of California, Berkeley professor Gabriel Zucman. "They need billionaires to pay their fair share."
Oct 20, 2026
A world-renowned economist said Monday that Elon Musk's pledge to donate a share of his company, SpaceX, to every American child is not nearly enough to redress the exploding wealth inequality that he personifies.
Gabriel Zucman, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley and a leading inequality expert, wrote in a series of social media posts directed at Musk that "if you really want to help the American people, I have a better suggestion than charity: pay more taxes."
"You, like your fellow billionaires, pay a lower effective tax rate than the average American," Zucman wrote, pointing to his research on the tax rates of the wealthiest Americans.
Zucman and his colleagues estimated in a 2025 paper that the total effective tax rate of the 400 wealthiest US households "averaged 24% in 2018–2020 compared with 30% for the full population and 45% for top labor income earners."
Based on available data and tax records obtained by ProPublica, Musk's effective tax rate has been far lower than average. Between 2014 and 2018, Musk—whose wealth is mostly tied up in stock that is only taxed when it is sold—paid an effective federal rate of 3.27%.
"The American people don’t need billionaires making grand promises of generosity," wrote Zucman. "They need billionaires to pay their fair share. All of them. Each year. How is it acceptable that billionaires pay a lower tax rate than the average American? The most effective way to do is with a billionaire wealth tax."
Billionaires’s extremely low tax rates are fueling oligarchic power in the United States.Look at the wealth held by the richest billionaires relative to what’s produced in a given year in the US—a good measure of the influence their wealth can buy. The economic weight of extreme wealth now far exceeds its Gilded Age peak.
— Gabriel Zucman (@gabriel_zucman) October 19, 2026
Musk, whose net worth briefly surpassed $1 trillion earlier this year following SpaceX's debut on the public market, pledged to distribute a share of the company to every American child. Based on the company's current stock price, the donation would be worth around $11 billion—a tiny percentage of Musk's total wealth.
"Giving 1% is better than giving 0%, and I applaud that," Zucman wrote in his social media thread on Monday. "But Americans don’t need charity, as in 19th Century Britain. They need everybody to contribute through the tax system, in proportion to their ability to pay."
Zucman expressed support for the Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act, legislation introduced earlier this year by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.). The bill would impose a 5% annual wealth tax on US billionaires, whose combined net worth surged past $9 trillion over the summer.
"This would still be small relative to your wealth," Zucman said of the tax, "and yet would generate more than $4.4 trillion in revenue over the next decade. That would make a real difference to the lives of the American people. Owning one share in SpaceX won’t."
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The 'No Tax on Social Security' Monster That Will Not Die
The Trump administration continues to mislead on the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
Oct 20, 2026
We have all seen the horror movie where the villain or monster seems to be dead but somehow manages to come back to life and terrorizes its potential victims. Well, this is how we felt when we saw the signs “No Tax on Social Security” at President Donald Trump’s campaign rallies in Arizona and Georgia, proudly carried by supporters. This myth has long been discredited.
Back in May, for this publication, we pointed out that contrary to the claims of the Trump administration, the “One Big Beautiful Bill” did not end taxes on Social Security. Instead, what it did was establish a temporary tax break for some senior citizens that expires in 2028.
The Brookings and Urban Institute pointed out back in July 2025 that:
President Trump proposed eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits as part of his 2024 campaign. And one provision of the budget bill does reduce income taxes for older adults on all their income, including their Social Security benefits. But the measure includes no direct tax cut on Social Security. The budget measure includes a temporary $6,000 deduction for taxpayers over age 65, starting this year. But that tax reduction would benefit fewer than half of older adults, the Tax Policy Center estimates.
On October 1 of this year, the PBS News Hour fact-checked the “no tax on Social Security” claim and concluded:
The bill falls short of a full repeal of Social Security taxation. The bill gives an additional $6,000 tax deduction to people ages 65 and older. This does not mean all Social Security beneficiaries receive a tax cut (because some of them are under 65). Some people get the tax break without receiving Social Security (if they are over 65 and not collecting benefits yet). These deductions come on top of existing tax deductions for Americans over 65 years old—$2,000 if married or $1,600 if unmarried and not a surviving spouse.
This is not one of the many times when fact-checking political ads reveals misleading context or exaggeration. The “no tax on Social Security” claim is just factually incorrect or, in plain language, a lie. There is no way around this statement.
In addition to misleading on the Social Security provisions of the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” the Trump administration is hiding the fact that it hurt the solvency of the Social Security Trust fund. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget pointed out in June of 2025:
The Social Security and Medicare Trustees estimated in their 2025 annual reports on the programs that the retirement and hospital trust funds will become insolvent in 2033—only eight years from today. We estimate the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) would accelerate Social Security and Medicare insolvency by a year, to 2032. That’s when today’s 60-year-olds reach the full retirement age and when today’s youngest retirees turn 69.
So, how do we kill the myth that the “One Big Beautiful Bill” ended taxes on Social Security? We are not characters in a horror movie, but we have a sure way of getting rid of the no tax on Social Security monster. On Election Day, vote for candidates who will stand up for the truth about Social Security.
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'They Are Hiding Stuff': Trump Administration Delays Data on Impact of GOP Tax Cuts
One advocate suggested the administration is suppressing the data because it "doesn't line up" with Trump officials' narrative about the Republican budget law.
Oct 14, 2026
With the midterm elections less than three weeks away, US President Donald Trump's administration has delayed the release of Internal Revenue Service data showing how the Republican budget legislation that he signed into law last year has impacted families up and down the income distribution.
Politico reported Wednesday that the IRS "typically releases the data in the wake of each filing season, but this year's rollout is more anticipated because it's expected to provide the first detailed look at how taxpayers are taking advantage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including its new deductions for overtime wages and tipped income." The outlet added that the IRS, whose workforce has been gutted by the Trump administration, is "awaiting approval from the Treasury Department to publish the figures," which were scheduled to be released in July.
The New York Times reported last month that the Trump administration is also withholding IRS estimates of unpaid taxes.
Nina Olson, executive director of the Center for Taxpayer Rights and the former US taxpayer advocate, told Politico that she believes the administration is suppressing information that runs counter to its narrative about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which extended provisions of the 2017 Trump-GOP tax cuts that disproportionately benefited the richest Americans and large corporations.
"I think they are hiding stuff that doesn't line up with all the crowing the CEO has been doing," Olson said, referring to IRS chief executive Frank Bisignano, who has celebrated the OBBBA as "historic tax relief for working families."
But an analysis released last week by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy showed that the OBBBA "overwhelmingly benefits the rich and corporations."
"While proponents of OBBBA often describe certain portions of the law that they argue benefit the middle class (such as tax breaks for tips and overtime) these provisions are a very small portion of the overall legislation which overwhelmingly benefits high-income people and corporations," the group observed. "Since the 2025 law was enacted, enormous profitable corporations like Meta, Amazon, Google, Tesla, and many others have paid extremely low effective tax rates (from 0 percent to 8 percent) in large part due to OBBBA."
The analysis found that, overall, Trump's major economic policies have hiked taxes and consumer costs for low- and middle-income families while cutting them for the top 1%.
“The tax cuts Americans were promised—which were tilted heavily to the top to start—are being overwhelmed by higher prices and higher healthcare costs for most families,” said Steve Wamhoff, ITEP's federal policy director. “When you look at the full picture rather than tax cuts in isolation, the result is striking: The typical American in every income group is paying more, except that the richest 1% is the one group that comes out ahead.”
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