Community Corner
UC Berkeley Economist Lauds Biden’s ‘Billionaire Tax’
But at least one Democratic senator has publicly expressed opposition to the President's proposal to tax the ultra-rich.
BERKELEY, CA — A plan to increase taxes on the richest of the rich is included in President Joe Biden’s budget proposal for the 2023 fiscal year, and it has the blessings of at least one UC Berkeley economist.
The “Billionaire Minimum Income Tax” would raise an estimated $360 billion by taxing “one-hundredth of 1 percent of Americans,” Biden said Monday during a press conference in which he unveiled his proposed budget.
Around 700 billionaires would be impacted by the proposal, according to analysis by The Associated Press.
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“A firefighter and a teacher pay more than double” the tax rate a typical billionaire pays, Biden told reporters Monday.
Households with a net worth of $100 million or more would pay at least 20 percent of their income and unrealized gains (profits on investments that haven’t been cashed out).
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Gabriel Zucman, a UC Berkeley associated economics professor, tweeted his support for the proposal in a series of tweets Saturday, when news of the proposal leaked.
“This is big!” Zucman tweeted.
“With this tax, the top 10 billionaires alone would pay at least $215 billion in the next 10 years.”
Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg would be among those likely to pay higher taxes under the proposal.
“How big of a change would this make?” Zucman tweeted.
“According to ProPublica, Bezos, Buffett, and Musk collectively paid $1.5 billion in federal income tax in the 5 years 2014-2018… with this proposal, they would pay at least $111 billion (almost 100x more) over the next 9 years.”
The proposal is already facing opposition from within Biden’s own party, with at least one Democratic senator already publicly voicing skepticism about the proposal.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) threw cold water on a key element of the proposal, taxing unrealized gains, which in his view would be a tax on “things you don’t have,” Bloomberg News reports.
“You might have it on paper,” Manchin told the news outlet.
“There are other ways for people to pay their fair share, and I think everyone should pay.”
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