Biden Tax Plan Pretty Great For Working, Middle Classes, Tyranny For Rich. Grab A Fork!

Analysis doesn't include cost of condiments for eating the rich.

An analysis of Joe Biden's plans for taxing rich people and corporations to pay for his two big domestic programs finds that the tax burden would actually be borne by rich people and corporations. This is in contrast to years of Republicans touting "middle class tax cuts" where very few of the benefits actually go to the middle class.

So let's say that one more time, a little differently: The analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, says Biden really would be taxing the rich and corporations. Furthermore, middle- and lower-income households would see actual tax cuts, not merely some scrapings off their annual taxes, as was the case for the Republicans' 2017 Big Fat Tax Cut for Rich Fuckwads. Let's dive in, but only metaphorically, since Scrooge McDuck's vault will have less money to swim in and we wouldn't want to bump our heads.

For low-income folks — households making $26,000 a year or less — Biden's plan would chop about $600 a year off their taxes on average, which works out to about four percent of their annual income after taxes. The cut would be a bit more modest for middle-class households (those making between $52,000 and $92,000), coming to about $300 annually, or half a percent of their income, but a tax cut all the same. But remember, the big draw of the Biden plan isn't so much the tax cuts as it is all the good social infrastructure stuff, like family leave, universal pre-kindergarten, two years of free community college, and all the jobs that'll come from the infrastructure/green jobs bill — with a tax cut to boot.

And now for the Class War side of the ledger:

[The] story would be very different for high-income households. Those in the top 1 percent would pay an average of about $213,000 more in federal taxes in 2022 while those in the top 0.1 percent (who will make $3.6 million and above) would pay an average of nearly $1.6 million more, or almost 17 percent of their after-tax income. [...]

 Biden's proposals include extending recent temporary increases in the Child Tax Credit (CTC), the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC), and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)—all of which primarily would benefit low- and middle-income households. For high-income households, he'd raise individual income tax and capital gains tax rates, and tax unrealized capital gains at death. Finally, Biden's tax agenda includes a wide range of corporate tax increases, including a 28 percent corporate income tax rate, two corporate minimum taxes, and many other business tax changes.

Also too, the tax picture looks a bit different depending on whether families have children or not. Biden's plan to extend the Child Tax Credit in the American Rescue Plan through 2025 (it should be made permanent, but fine, budget math ) would benefit mostly middle- and lower-income households.

For example, while all low-income households would get an average tax cut of about $620 in 2022, taxes for such families with children would plunge by an average of $3,200. This is a feature, not a bug, of Biden's plan. But the difference is striking.

Specifically, that benefit is $3,000 per child under the age of 18, or $3,600 per child under age six, so that would also mean extra tax savings for a lot of middle-income earners (households making up to $75,000 individually or $150,000 for marrieds filing jointly).

The Tax Policy Center also looked at whether Biden's plan really keeps to his campaign promise not to raise taxes on families making under $400,000 a year. That's complicated a bit by the fact that the analysis broke down income levels in different increments, so the closest slice on the table is households making $200K to $500K.

Still, the answer seems to be Mostly, depending on whether you include the increased corporate tax rates, which would mean tax increases for a lot of folks in the middle, especially the upper middle class.

However, if you look just at personal income and payroll taxes, which seems a fair reading of Biden's pledge, the story is quite different. Among those making less than $200,000, only a few thousand would pay higher taxes in 2022. Nearly all would be wealthy decedents who would pay Biden's tax on unrealized capital gains.

About 0.6 percent of those making $200,000 to $500,000 would pay more in taxes, averaging about $22,000. Some, of course, would be making between $400,000 and $500,000.

Mind you, the GOP won't care about such niceties and will insist that Biden totally raised every middle-class family's taxes by $22,000, which is bullshit but we're sure it'll be in an ad.

In conclusion, we're gonna eat the rich. Want fries with that?

[ Tax Policy Center / CNBC / Photo:  Matt Brown, Creative Commons license 2.0 ]

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