Brief An Analysis of Former Vice President Biden’s Tax Proposals
Gordon B. Mermin, Surachai Khitatrakun, Chenxi Lu, Thornton Matheson, Jeffrey Rohaly
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In this brief, we estimate the revenue and distributional effects of former vice president Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign tax proposals, based on information released by the Biden campaign and conversations with campaign staff. We analyze Biden’s proposals as of February 23, 2020.

Biden would increase income and payroll taxes on high-income individuals and increase income taxes on corporations. He would increase federal revenues by $4.0 trillion over the next decade. Under his plan, the highest-income households would see substantially larger tax increases than households in other income groups, both in dollar amounts and as share of their incomes.

Biden’s spending proposals would also have important distributional and economic effects, but we do not estimate the distributional effects of those initiatives.

Primary topic Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms
Research Area Presidential campaign proposals
Election Issue Areas Income and wealth inequality