Biden relaunches billionaire tax plan in State of the Union address

President Biden will resurrect his plan for a so-called “billionaires tax” during his second State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

Biden first proposed a minimum tax on the super-rich in March 2022, but it was scrapped during final negotiations on the so-called Cut Inflation Act between Sens Democrats. Chuck Schumer of New York and Joe Manchin of West Virginia after Republicans called the proposal a tax hike on middle-class Americans.

The White House has included the billionaire tax agenda in a fact sheet on economic initiatives that Biden will discuss in his annual address to Congress.

“President Biden is a capitalist and thinks anyone should be able to be a millionaire or a billionaire. He also thinks it’s wrong for America to have a tax code that makes the wealthiest households in the United States pays a lower tax rate than working families,” the administration said, noting that billionaires pay an average tax rate of 8%.

“This minimum tax would ensure that the wealthiest Americans no longer pay a lower tax rate than teachers and firefighters,” the sheet continues.

Brian Deese, the outgoing director of the National Economic Council, told reporters at the White House on Monday that the president would focus his speech on economic progress as a country and cutting costs for the American people.

He pitted Biden’s approach against the Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion tax cut, which Democrats say only benefited the wealthy.

The president “wants this economic conversation to focus on how we can continue to reduce costs for the American people. And doing things like cutting taxes on the wealthiest people in the country and increasing the deficit accordingly is not only bad economic policy, it does nothing to address this core problem,” Deese told reporters.

Under the proposal rolled out in March 2022, households worth more than $100 million would pay at least 20% taxes on income and “unrealized gains” – the increase in value of an unsold investment .

The White House said the new tax plan would only apply to 0.01% of US households.

With post wires