State Of The Union 2023: Biden To Propose 'billionaire Minimum Tax'

In his State of the Union speech, President Joe Biden will advocate for a new tax on billionaires. According to a long fact sheet from the White House outlining Biden's economic platform as well as what to anticipate from his highly anticipated address on Tuesday, Biden will urge Congress to adopt legislation that would impose extra taxes on the wealthiest Americans. According to the White House, "President Biden is a capitalist and believes that anyone should have the opportunity to become a millionaire or a billionaire. "He also believes that it is wrong for America to have a tax code that causes America's wealthiest households to pay a lower tax rate than working families," it said. The fact sheet said that the average tax rate paid by billionaires is 8%. The White House did not go into detail about the proposed tax, but a previous proposal that was taken into consideration would have changed the tax code by imposing a 23.8% annual tax on all gains on the assets of billionaires in a given year, including unrealized capital gains (which are not currently taxable). The small group of wealthy earners who made more than $100 million a year would also have been covered by it.Legal arguments would probably centre on the question of whether a billionaire tax is an unlawful federal property tax or a type of income tax. The question of whether unrealized profits may be regarded as income has been a point of contention among academics.

Given that the House is now controlled by Republicans and that certain Democrats in the Senate, including moderate Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), may be reluctant to endorse such a plan, the agenda item will be perceived as primarily aspirational.Biden will also advocate for a fourfold increase in the tax on corporate stock buybacks at the State of the Union address. That comes after the Inflation Reduction Act, approved by Congress last year, slapped a 1% excise tax on business buybacks.According to the White House, "oil and gas firms generated record profits last year and spent very little in domestic production to keep gas prices low—instead, they bought their own stock, handing all that wealth to their CEOs and stockholders."

The address by Biden on Tuesday is scheduled to start at 9 EST.