WASHINGTON: The wealthiest American taxpayers would pay a minimum tax on their income each year under a budget proposal unveiled by President Joe Biden’s administration on Monday.
“This minimum tax would apply only to the wealthiest 0.01 percent of households – those with more than $100 million – and over half the revenue would come from billionaires alone,” the White House said in a statement.
“It would ensure that, in any given year, they pay at least 20 percent of their total income in federal income taxes.”
The provision in the annual budget proposal satisfies a demand of progressive lawmakers in Biden’s Democratic party, who have called for measures to increase taxes on the wealthiest Americans as a way of addressing inequality.
White House to propose new minimum tax on billionaires: media
Similar proposals were discussed last year during negotiations over Build Back Better, a massive spending bill Biden proposed to revamp the country’s social services and fight climate change, but which has stalled due to divisions among Democrats in Congress.
The budget would also raise the corporate tax rate to 28 percent, reversing legislation passed under Biden’s Republican predecessor Donald Trump in 2017 that lowered it to 21 percent.
“While their profits have soared, their investment in our economy did not: the tax breaks did not trickle down to workers or consumers,” the White House said, noting the new rate is “still the lowest tax rate faced by corporations since World War II except in the years after the 2017 tax cut.”
Washington has backed a deal negotiated under the auspices of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development that would put a 15 percent minimum tax on corporations globally.
The White House said the budget proposal “contains additional measures to ensure that multinationals operating in the United States cannot use tax havens to undercut the global minimum tax.”
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