As Democrats from across the nation convene in Chicago to choose Vice President Kamala Harris as their party’s presidential nominee, they will also be adopting an ambitious policy platform that commits to fixing our broken tax code, Americans for Tax Fairness Action Fund (ATFAF) has determined based on an analysis of budget scores for the same proposals included in the annual proposed budgets of the Biden-Harris administration.
“With this bold blueprint for progressive tax reform, the Democratic Party and the Harris campaign show they understand the need to unrig our out-of-whack tax system,” said David Kass, ATFAF’s executive director. “By including in their platform all the long-overdue tax-reform proposals put forth over the past four years by the Biden-Harris administration, Democrats are responding to the demands of voters all along the political spectrum for the rich and corporations to finally start paying their fair share. If enacted by the next Congress and administration, the broad sweep of reforms in the DNC platform will go a long way towards making our tax code more fair and opening opportunities for all Americans, not just those at the top.”
Over the nearly four years of the Biden-Harris administration, the president, vice president and Democrats in Congress have taken significant strides to make our tax code more fair. The passage of the historic Inflation Reduction Act implemented a 1% stock buyback tax, a new 15% corporate minimum tax, and restored funding for the IRS to better crackdown on wealthy tax cheats.
But many more reforms are needed to unrig a tax system distorted by decades of special breaks for the rich and corporations inserted in the tax code by lobbyists and their congressional allies. The Biden-Harris Administration’s most recent budget, like those before it, asked Congress to raise $5 trillion of new revenue by raising taxes on the ultra-wealthy and mega-corporations, while expanding tax credits for working families and making critical investments like universal child care, paid leave, and elder care. Those policy recommendations have now been included in the Democratic platform.
Below are a list of tax policy proposals outlined in the Democratic Party platform and the estimated amount of revenue they could generate over the next ten years, based on analyses by the Treasury Department of the same proposals included in Biden-Harris administration annual budget proposals (and one separate analysis by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy).
- Make billionaires pay a minimum income tax rate of 25% on all their income ($503 billion)
- End the preferential treatment for capital gains for millionaires, so they pay the same rate on investment income as on wages; and eliminate the “stepped-up basis” loophole for the wealthiest Americans, so they can’t avoid paying taxes on their investment gains by passing them down to heirs ($289 billion)
- Abolish abusive life insurance tax shelters, and stop billionaires from exploiting retirement tax incentives that are supposed to help middle-class families save ($38 billion)
- Close the “carried interest” loophole, which allows wealthy fund managers to dodge taxes by claiming wages are really investment returns ($14 billion)
- Increase the stock buyback tax to 4% to discourage stock buybacks that benefit executives and wealthy shareholders, instead of workers and consumers ($166 billion)
- Keep the IRS fully funded to crack down on wealthy and corporate tax cheats that fail to pay what they owe ($365 billion)
- Raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% ($1.35 trillion)
- Double the tax rate that American multinationals pay on foreign earnings and end tax incentives that encourage companies to shift jobs and operations overseas and book profits in low-tax countries ($708 billion)
- Eliminate wasteful tax subsidies for oil and gas companies that exacerbate global warming ($120 billion)
- No longer permit companies to deduct multi-million dollar executive salaries ($272 billion)
- End special tax breaks for corporate jets and boost fuel taxes on corporate and private jets ($4 billion)
- Eliminate the so-called “like-kind exchange” loophole that allows wealthy real estate investors to avoid paying taxes on profits from real estate sales ($20 billion)
- Making the wealthy pay their fair share into Social Security ($1.34 trillion)
- Making the wealthy pay their fair share in Medicare taxes ($797 billion)
Sources: Policies proposed in the 2024 Democratic Party Platform, revenue estimates from the Treasury Department
*Based on ITEP single year revenue projection multiplied over ten years.