“Look, I think you should be able to be a billionaire if you can earn it, but just pay your fair share,” Biden’s tweet read. “I think you ought to pay a minimum tax of 25%. It’s about basic fairness.”
The tweet included a graphic of a Biden quote that said: “You know the average tax billionaires pay? Three percent. No billionaire should be paying a lower tax than somebody working as a schoolteacher or a firefighter.”
But it is unclear where the 3% figure came from, and it contradicts figures the White House has issued in the past.
In February, the White House issued a fact sheet called “The Biden Economic Plan Is Working,” which calculated how much tax the U.S. could collect if it counted unrealized gains – a potential profit on an unsold asset – as income.
[We have never taxed unrealized gains, because they’re unrealized — meaning that they have not been sold, and their value has not been turned into income. Taxing unrealized gains would be akin to a property tax, not an income tax, and the federal government has no authority to levy such a tax. Furthermore, everyone with a 401K or IRA, or even a post-tax investment account, has “unrealized gains,” too. Would you want those taxed every year, forcing you to sell off your assets to pay federal taxes? — Ed]
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