Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin shot down President Biden’s latest proposal to impose a 20 percent minimum tax on America’s wealthiest citizens.
Background: On Sunday, President Biden announced a new proposal to raise tax revenue from wealthy Americans by taxing unrealized gains.
The tax plan would apply only to those who don’t pay at least 20% in tax on a combination of income as typically defined and their unrealized gains on unsold assets such as stocks and closely held businesses. (per The Wall Street Journal)
According to a White House fact sheet, the proposal would affect roughly 200,000 households and would generate roughly $360 billion in revenue over 10 years.
What Happened: On Tuesday, moderate Democrat Joe Manchin announced he would not support Biden’s latest proposal.
“You can’t tax something that’s not earned. Earned income is what we’re based on,” Manchin told The Hill. “There’s other ways to do it. Everybody has to pay their fair share.”
“Everybody has to pay their fair share, that’s for sure. But unrealized gains is not the way to do it, as far as I’m concerned,” he added.
What It Means: Sen. Manchin’s opposition means Biden’s proposal is likely dead mere days after being announced.
What Republicans Say: Senate Republican whip and Finance Committee member John Thune called Biden’s proposal problematic.
“It’s essentially taxing people before they actually get the income, and that seems like a really dangerous precedent in tax law because if you have a gain one year and then a huge loss the next year, how’s the government going to pay people back for their losses?” he said.
“We’ve always had a principle in our tax policy that a gain has to be actually realized, income has to be received before it can be taxed, and this completely undermines that principle,” he added. “It’s a wealth tax basically, but I think it’s a dangerous precedent.” (per The Hill)
What Comes Next: The proposal could be restructured to avoid taxing unrealized gains, however, it would pose the challenge of trying to make up the lost revenues.
I have read that the top 1% pay 50% of the fed taxes.
“You’ll own nothing and be happy!” – Nancy Pelosi
FJB…America needs a REGIME CHANGE…NOW!!!
Thank you Joe Manchin, a voice of reason. This would have affected more than the wealthy. I believe it was a cash grab on all of our earnings from 401Ks,etc.
Perhaps an 80% tax on DC Politicians? They can subsidize their anti-social hobby (politics) themselves, at least partially. Let them pay for what they are spending.
No, it will never happen, and they couldn’t make up for the horrible way they have overspent in the past, anyway, but it is something to think about. They (politicians), past and present, caused most of these problems, then let them pay to fix the problems.
Senator Manchin is one of two Senators that first represent the state of West Virginia, second they represent the United States of America. They do not represent the Democrat Party.
Manchin voting his conscious is not stabbing anyone in the back. There’s no absolutes in party support. Besides old Joe has stabbed the country in the back so often I’m surprised anyone notices.
The Federal Government needs to get out of the Energy Medical Housing business. It`s not what we hired them to do. Everything that they touch they muck it up big time.
Those P D B’s just don’t seem to be able to stretch their minds far enough to consider a blanket percentage, the same percentage for everybody.(AND, maybe a little more for elected officials in Washington, to cover what they steal, and get inside information on.)