Pirate's Cove

The pledge from Harris/Biden is that no one making under $400,000 will see their taxes raised is a cute one, but, like all Democrat plans, once you dig in you see something different

Yes, Joe Biden will raise taxes on those earning less than $400,000

Joe Biden’s tax proposals have gone through a variety of iterations over the course of his campaign, but lately, he’s settled on a pledge not to raise taxes on those earning under $400,000.

This pledge is not consistent with his current proposals, but he’s even less likely to be constrained if he’s elected president.

Even if Biden claims he would not directly raise income tax rates on those earning under $400,000, there are a number of policy changes he’d make that would directly or indirectly hit taxpayers under that threshold.

As one example, Biden has pledged to bring back Obamacare’s individual mandate. Yet in 2018, the last year for which the penalties were still in place, nearly 3.7 million people earning less than $200,000 paid mandate taxes, according to IRS data, which represented nearly 99% of those who had to pay some sort of penalty. And 2.6 million, or about 69% of those who paid the mandate, earned less than $50,000.

Of course, if the Dems keep the House and get the Senate, they will move to replace our entire health system with Medicare For All, ie, Single Payer, so, yeah, your taxes will go up.

Biden has also planned to overhaul the way tax breaks work for retirement savings. The Tax Foundation concluded that, on net, his “plan would reduce the tax benefit of traditional retirement accounts for those earning above $80,250 but under $400,000, violating Biden’s tax pledge to not raise taxes on earners below the $400,000 threshold.”

There are also indirect ways in which the Biden plan would hit those earning less than $400,000. For instance, increasing corporate income taxes, as Biden has pledged, would reduce the income of workers or shareholders of those companies.

While there’s no doubt that, as proposed, Biden’s taxes would hit the top 1% much harder, independent analyses from an ideological cross section of organizations (the Tax Policy Center, Penn Wharton Budget Model, Tax Foundation, and American Enterprise Institute) concluded that take home pay would be reduced at all income groups, even if just by a few hundred dollars for lower earners.

Not mentioned are all of Joe’s plans on ‘climate change’. This will cause direct and indirect increases in taxes for those making less than $400k. The indirect would be termed “cost of living”, as the cost of food, clothes, housing, energy, and so much more will go up up up. If Joe enforces a higher CAFE standard (MPG requirement for vehicles), that increases the actual cost of vehicles. You are then paying more in taxes on the purchase (though it is often termed a “road user fee” by states), as well as the property tax for said vehicle. This is what the Biden voters don’t get: they’re voting for raising the cost of everything.