Biden to propose new minimum tax on wealthiest Americans in 2023 budget
NBCJul 28, 2022
The Facts
Pres. Biden has called upon Congress to pass a minimum tax for billionaires as part of a renewed effort to jumpstart his domestic social spending plans while reducing the deficit.
The "Billionaire Minimum Income Tax" calls for American families with assets valued at over $100M to pay federal taxes amounting to at least 20% of their combined income and unrealized gains in liquid assets such as stocks and bonds.
The Spin
Conservative narrative
This is a short-sighted class warfare aimed at soaking true innovators by forcing them to play by a different set of rules than everyone else, namely to pay taxes on money that they haven't even earned yet. Once the precedent is set - that unrealized capital gains can be taxed - it won't be long before the Democrats come after the assets of the middle class too.
Progressive narrative
Income taxes have become regressive. They effectively capture a percentage of the income of Americans who earn wages, but they aren't effective at taxing income made on capital investments, which is how the very wealthy keep getting wealthier. 64% of Americans support a wealth tax, and it's high time that we tried to distribute the burden of our tax system more fairly.