Pirate's Cove

Going to the same well again and again

Biden’s tax plan: Eyes on the 1% and corporations like Amazon

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Trump’s press secretary opened by saying that “the first night of the Democratic convention left out the fact that Joe Biden would raise taxes on more than 80% of Americans by at least $4 trillion.”

The numbers were slightly off but are true in the broad strokes. According to analysts, Biden’s tax plan would raise “between $3.35 trillion and $3.67 trillion” in the coming decade.

And Biden himself isn’t denying it. He has directly said to high-income earners that “if you elect me your taxes are going to be raised.”

Biden’s increases would “primarily aim at raising taxes on higher earners, raising taxes on corporations, and raising taxes on business and investment income for those higher earners,” says Garrett Watson, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation who has analyzed the candidate’s plans.

Does anyone actually think that Joe is going to raise the taxes of those who donate and vote Democrat? Think Hollywood is going to pay more? How about progressive companies like Amazon and, well, Progressive Insurance? Big companies like NBC, CBS, ABC, Washington Post, NY Times, and LA Times, among others? Or will there be tons of loopholes? It’s the slightly smaller ones that will bear the burden.

Biden’s tax plans have been analyzed by a range of groups, including the American Enterprise Institute to the Brookings Institution. A combination of multiple analyses found that Biden’s plans would mean that the richest Americans would see their taxes go up by 13% to 18%. Americans of more moderate means would also see tax increases, but they have been called “indirect” and amount to a smaller increase: around 0.2% to 0.6%.

In other words, in the Real World, your cost of living will go up, most likely, several percentage points, because the companies that do actually pay higher taxes (and, we can debate large companies and their tax burdens) will pass those on to the consumer.

Biden’s tax plan – if implemented – would slow the pace of economic growth. Watson estimates GDP growth would be reduced by about 1.5% over the long term, and notes that hard conversations will be needed – whoever is president – after the pandemic ends about spending cuts and the “tradeoff when it comes to these tax hikes in the form of reduced growth.”

You know what this will also do? Decrease hiring. If the cost of doing business goes up, something has to bear that burden. And that would be hiring, especially part time, and would also hit potential employee pay. Let’s not forget Democrats want to make the minimum wage $15 an hour, so, yeah, things would be bad for business.