WASHINGTON — President Biden vowed Friday that former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts will be allowed to lapse next year if he’s re-elected and will “stay expired” — which could mean higher taxes for middle class and low-income Americans.
Biden, 81, slammed Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), which permanently lowered corporate tax rates from 35% to 21% and temporarily lowered personal income tax rates through 2025, as a giveaway to the rich in a speech to electrical union members in Washington.
“[Trump] was proud, very proud of his $2 trillion tax cut when he was president that overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy and the biggest corporations and exploded, exploded the federal debt,” Biden said of his predecessor ahead of their expected November election rematch.
“There is no exaggeration here: It’s going to expire and if I’m re-elected, it is going to stay expired,” the president added.
Biden has repeatedly pledged not to raise taxes on people who earn under $400,000 annually and it was not immediately clear if his remarks on allowing the tax law to expire was a considered policy position or an off-the-cuff remark.
The White House and Biden campaign did not immediately provide comment.
The Tax Foundation says that Americans would be hit by across-the board income tax hikes if the TCJA is allowed to lapse.
“Congress has less than two years to prevent tax hikes on the vast majority of Americans from taking place,” the foundation said in a blog post last month promoting a calculator tool that allows people to determine their own likely tax hike.
The top 1% of earners had their average federal income tax rate lowered from 26.8% to 25.4% under the law, according to the Tax Foundation’s review of IRS records. Democrats have noted that because that cohort earns more than lower-income people, the effect of the cuts was to save them much more money.
But other groups also saw cuts — with those in the next-highest 4% of earners seeing rates drop from 19.5% to 17.3% and those in between the 10% and 5% benchmarks having their rates dip from 14.3% to 13.1%.
Poorer people also had their taxes reduced, with the bottom 50% of filers having their rate lowered from 4% to 3.4%, according to the foundation’s analysis.
The quarter of Americans comprising the income group spanning the top 50% and 75% of earners had their taxes reduced from 8.1% to 6.9%.