Democrats tax plan falls short of Biden ambition

House Democrats have drafted a package of tax increases that falls short of US president Joe Biden’s ambition, an acknowledgment of how politically precarious the White House’s $3.5 trillion (€2.97 billion)economic agenda is for party moderates.

The Democratic proposal would raise the top corporate tax rate from 21 per cent to 26.5 per cent, less than the 28 per cent the US president had sought, people familiar with the matter said.

The top rate on capital gains would rise from 20 per cent to 25 per cent, instead of the 39.6 per cent President Biden proposed, the people said.

The package of proposals, estimated to raise more than $2 trillion, are slimmed down to appeal to business-minded Democrats, many of whom hail from swing districts. And Democratic leaders, who need the party's full support to push Mr Biden's agenda through Congress, will almost certainly pare them down further in the weeks ahead.

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Conservative opposition

The corporate tax hike drew immediate fire from conservatives, a preview of the fight ahead as the house of representatives ways and means committee prepares to meet Tuesday to debate the tax portion of the economic package.

Conservative group Americans for Tax Reform said the corporate rate proposal would lead to immediate increase in consumer utility bills and make the US less competitive on the world stage

“Democrats want to take the current rate of 21 per cent and raise it to 26.5 per cent, higher than communist China’s 25 per cent and higher than the developed world average of 23.5 per cent This does not even include state corporate income taxes, which average another 4 - 5 per cent nationwide,” the group said.

A document circulating among members of both parties and obtained by Bloomberg cites preliminary estimates that the new proposals would raise $2.9 trillion in revenue when combined with $700 billion in revenue and cost savings from Medicare drug price changes.

To fully pay for the president’s plan, the proposal factors in $600 billion from the estimated economic growth effects of the spending increase.

The proposal would also raise an estimated $16 billion by limiting deductions for executive compensation and $96 billion by higher taxes on tobacco and nicotine products, including e-cigarettes.

Cryptocurrency

Democrats are proposing to include cryptocurrency in general tax rules, to treat it the same as other financial instruments and to prevent taxpayer abuse of the rules. Doing so would generate an estimated $16 billion in revenue.

And the proposal would cut in half the $24,000 estate and gift tax exemption for married filers from the end of this year, four years earlier than set in the tax cuts passed under former president Donald Trump.

The proposal "meets two core goals the president laid out at the beginning of this process – it does not raise taxes on Americans earning under $400,000 and it repeals the core elements of the Trump tax giveaways for the wealthy and corporations that have done nothing to strengthen our country's economic health", White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement.

Notably absent from the document is any discussion of lifting the $10,000 cap on the state and local tax deduction, raising questions about the fate of that costly proposal.

While the numbers are still subject to change before the proposal is officially released, such scaled-back plans would amount to an acknowledgment that even higher rates would have a tough time getting through Congress after some moderate Democrats expressed objections.

With thin majorities in both chambers, Democrats can afford just three defections in the House and none in the Senate as they use a process called budget reconciliation that allows them to bypass Republicans.

A spokesperson for ways and means committee chairman Richard Neal didn't respond to a request for comment. The panel is set to debate the tax portions of the bill Tuesday and Wednesday.

Surtax on rich

Earlier, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat whose vote is crucial in the evenly split upper chamber, renewed his objections to the $3.5 trillion tax-and-spending reconciliation plan. He said he can't support the price tag, doesn't see the urgency and is concerned about inflation and the impact of higher corporate taxes on US competitiveness.

Senator Manchin, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” floated a roughly $1.5 trillion headline number for the package.

Ways and means committee Democrats are expected to propose raising the top individual income tax rate to 39.6 per cent, as sought by President Biden, the people said. The Democrats would also propose a 3 per cent surtax on individuals with adjusted gross income of more than $5 million, a proposal not included in Mr Biden's plans released earlier this year. – Bloomberg