Biden to Propose New “Billionaire Minimum Income Tax” of 20 Percent

The minimum income tax for billionaires will be part of the budget proposal for the next fiscal year. The Washington Post reported that the 700 richest Americans would be targeted by a specific tax for the first time. The minimum tax rate for households worth more than $100 million would be 20 percent.

The White House said that the billionaire minimum income tax would make sure that the wealthiest Americans pay a tax rate of at least 20 percent on their full income.

Most of the new revenue that would be raised by the tax that would apply only to the top one-hundredth of 1 percent of American households would come from billionaires. Anyone who is a target for the tax and already pays at least 20 percent in taxes wouldn't owe any more money while those paying below that rate would have to pay enough to reach the 20-percent threshold. The wealthiest people in the country would have to pay more taxes. According to calculations by Gabriel Zucman, an economist at the University of California Berkeley, Jeff Bezos would have to pay an additional $35 billion in taxes.

The Democratic Party's base has long called for higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans. It is unclear whether it will be able to make it through Congress, as some lawmakers have long objected to the idea of increasing taxes on the wealthy. It is not certain whether Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona would support the plan. They wouldn't be the only voices that were skeptical of the new tax. Several Biden administration officials have said that implementing a wealth tax is difficult. Experts have said that a wealth tax could lead to legal challenges on the question of whether it is constitutional to tax wealth rather than income.