Progressive lawmakers renew push to increase taxes on wealthiest Americans

A group of progressive lawmakers is pushing again to raise taxes on the nation’s wealthiest people.

The proposal, which was reintroduced Tuesday, would impose a 2% tax on households with property values ​​of more than $50 million and a 3% tax on households with property values ​​of more than $1 billion. . The bill would affect 100,000 of the nation’s wealthiest households, according to its sponsor, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). USA Today first reported.

“Today, I’m reintroducing the super-millionaire tax, which means that when someone makes a really big deal, more than $50 million, they have to tip 2 cents on their next dollar. That means it must be done.” Warren said in a post about X.formerly known as Twitter.

“That means Jeff Bezos can’t continue to pay a lower tax rate than public school teachers,” Warren added.

The bill includes a provision that would provide an additional $100 billion to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to help prevent tax avoidance by the wealthy. It would also impose a 40% tax on net worth of about $50 million for people who want to renounce their U.S. citizenship to avoid paying wealth taxes.

Warren has the support of a handful of Democratic senators and Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont), as well as more than 20 House Democrats. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pennsylvania), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, joined Warren in introducing the bill.

Warren’s bill is not expected to pass much in the Republican-controlled House, but it continues the left’s longstanding efforts to tax the wealthy.

Last week, President Biden released an ambitious budget proposal that called for a wealth tax on individuals with assets of $100 million or more. He called for a minimum tax rate of 25% for the “wealthiest 0.01%” of Americans and a return to the top income tax rate of 39.6% for those earning more than $400,000 a year.

As Biden and Congress prepare for an election year, the proposal aims to bring tax rates closer to where they were before former President Donald Trump took office.

In an emailed statement, Warren reiterated her message that it’s unfair that Amazon CEO Bezos has a “tax loophole” that allows him to be paid less than teachers. “What my bill calls for,” she said, “is for people who are doing well economically to pay more in taxes so that ‘other people’ have a chance to do well, too.” Ta.