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ICYMI: FACT SHEET: This Tax Day, the Tax Contrast Couldn’t Be Clearer

Berry Craig
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House Republicans Want the Tax Code to Work for the Wealthy; President Biden Wants It to Work for the Middle Class

This Tax Day, President Biden is fighting for hardworking families, while House Republicans continue to side with the wealthy and big corporations. Since taking office, President Biden has made the tax system fairer: cutting taxes for families and workers, enacting a minimum tax on billion-dollar corporations, and investing in the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) so that it can better serve taxpayers and crack down on wealthy tax cheats. If Congress enacted President Biden’s tax plan, tens of millions of workers and families would have their taxes cut, nobody making less than $400,000 would pay a penny more in taxes, and the wealthy and big corporations would finally pay their fair share—which would fully pay for the President’s tax cuts and investment agenda.

In sharp contrast, the Republican Study Committee—which represents 80% of House Republicans and 100% of their leadership—just released an extreme budget that sides with the wealthy and large corporations, with $5.5 trillion in tax cuts skewed to the richest Americans, doubling down on the failed approach of the Trump tax cuts. If their extreme proposals became law, millions of families would face higher taxes and higher costs, and receive worse customer service from the IRS. Meanwhile, billionaires and the biggest corporations would get huge tax cuts and get away with cheating on their taxes. House Republicans would help billionaires while hurting families by cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and other programs hardworking Americans count on.

President Biden Would Make the Wealthy and Big Corporations Pay Their Fair Share, While Cutting Taxes for Working Families and the Middle Class

The President’s plan would build on his progress to date, including proposals to:

  • Make corporations pay their fair share by raising the corporate tax rate to 28% and the Inflation Reduction Act’s corporate minimum tax on billion-dollar corporations to 21%, cracking down on tax avoidance by large multinationals and Big Pharma, denying corporate tax breaks for multi-million-dollar executive compensation, quadrupling the stock buybacks tax, and cracking down on corporate jet loopholes.
  • Make the wealthy pay their fair share by requiring billionaires to pay at least 25% of their income in taxes, modestly raising taxes on the wealthy to fund the Medicare trust fund permanently, and ending the Trump tax cuts for the richest taxpayers.
  • Cut taxes for working families and the middle class by increasing the Child Tax Credit for 66 million children, which would lift 3 million children out of poverty; cutting taxes for 19 million working-class Americans by strengthening the Earned Income Tax Credit; and making permanent the expanded Affordable Care Act premium tax credits that are lowering health insurance premiums by about $800 per year for millions of Americans. These tax cuts are fully paid for by making the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share.
  • Make sure the IRS works for Americans by continuing to improve customer service and crack down on wealthy tax cheats. This filing season, the IRS has achieved a 3-minute call wait time, saved taxpayers 1.4 million hours of hold times with expanded call back availability, increased in-person tax preparation support by more than 200,000 returns, and successfully launched a Direct File pilot that lets Americans file their taxes online easily and for free, directly with the IRS. The IRS has also collected more than $500 million in unpaid taxes from around 1,000 delinquent millionaires and billionaires, launched enforcement action against 25,000 millionaires who have not filed a tax return since 2017, and cracked down on high-end tax evasion like deducting personal use of corporate jets as a business expense. President Biden is fighting to continue investing in the IRS, which will enable it to collect hundreds of billions of dollars in additional revenue over the next decade.
  • Ensure no one earning less than $400,000 a year sees a tax increase, while rejecting plans to extend tax cuts or restore tax breaks for those making more than $400,000 a year, and fully paying for all tax cut extensions by making the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share, not tax increases on the middle-class or magical growth assumptions.

House Republicans Would Slash Taxes for the Wealthy and Big Corporations, Raise Taxes on Millions of Americans, and Cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid

The extreme Republican budget proposes $5.5 trillion in tax cuts skewed to the wealthy and big corporations, including:

  • Cutting taxes for the wealthy by making Trump tax cuts permanent, resulting in an average tax cut of at least $175,000 a year for the top 0.1 percent and costing $3 trillion.
  • Cutting taxes for businesses by more than $600 billion on top of the massive Trump tax cuts, which have completely failed to trickle down to workers.
  • Cutting taxes for billionaires and worsening wealth inequality by eliminating the estate tax, which currently applies to only the wealthiest 0.1% of Americans, those with assets over $13.6 million per person ($27.2 million per couple).
  • Reversing two of President Biden’s major achievements for tax fairness: a 15% minimum tax on billion-dollar corporations and a tax on stock buybacks that encourages companies to invest in their workers and the American economy rather than windfalls for investors.
  • Blocking the President’s global minimum tax agreement in order to keep taxes low for big multinationals, including Big Pharma.
  • Rewarding wealth, not work, by cutting capital gains taxes, overwhelmingly benefitting the wealthiest Americans.
  • Making it easier for the wealthy and big corporations to cheat on their taxes by eliminating the Inflation Reduction Act’s investment in the IRS.

While cutting taxes for billionaires, the extreme Republican budget would make devastating cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and other programs hardworking Americans count on, and raise taxes on millions of middle-class families, including:

  • Eliminating the expanded Affordable Care Act premium tax credit would raise the cost of health insurance for millions of Americans by an average of about $800 per year, including older people and self-employed workers.
  • Repealing the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax credits, which would raise taxes by thousands of dollars for families installing a heat pump or solar panels.
  • Making it harder for honest Americans to pay their taxes by rescinding the funding that has enabled the IRS to reduce phone wait times from 28 minutes to just 3 minutes, answer nearly 3 million more calls than two years ago, and serve 200,000 more taxpayers in person.