Biden really doesn’t understand how income taxes work (or he’s full of it)
Timothy P. Carney
Video Embed
A few years back, all the liberal activists, half the news media, and the leaders of the Democratic Party all invented a new tax system that exists only in their minds. And then, for some reason, they all decided to act like it already existed.
The trick here is using the term “wealth gain” in a way that makes people think they are talking about “income.” But the category of “wealth gain” is far broader than the category of income.
BIDEN MAY HAVE DISCOVERED THE REASON HIS ECONOMIC MESSAGE IS FALLING FLAT
Income is mostly your salary. It also includes interest you were paid by your savings accounts. For very few people, income also includes some taxable benefits. Income also includes “realized gains” — that is, stock you bought at $5 and sold for $8 counts as $3 in income.
Wealth gain includes all of the above plus unrealized gains. That is, if your home appreciated in value, your net worth has gone up, and so you have “gained wealth,” even if you have no desire or ability to sell your home any time soon. In the weird COVID-Bidenflation world, your car probably increased in value, which is a wealth gain.
Also, if you have retirement savings that went up in value because of stock market gains, you had “wealth gain,” even though that wealth is essentially illiquid until you’re retirement age.
So what the progressive folks at ProPublica, the news media, and the Democratic Party were doing when complaining about billionaires’ supposedly low tax rates was advocating a completely new way of taxing people — but not admitting it.
That was misleading. What President Joe Biden is doing now is trading out that misleading sleight of hand for outright falsehood.
Biden is pretending that “everyone else” pays taxes on their wealth gain. This is obviously false because “everybody” else didn’t pay taxes on their minivan going up in value in 2021 or their house appreciating underneath them.
It’s either pure ignorance or rank dishonesty. It’s interesting to debate which one it is. It’s possible that Biden, who is now very wealthy thanks to his career in politics, has forgotten what it’s like to fill out income tax forms. It’s also possible that, at his advanced age, he doesn’t understand income taxes. I think dishonesty is more likely.