$3.4 trillion in individual tax cuts are expiring next year. Biden and Trump would handle it very differently

Whoever wins the presidency in November will have some especially tough financial choices to make next year.

Whoever wins the presidency in November will have some especially tough financial choices to make next year. More than $3.4 trillion in individual income and estate tax cuts – heralded by Republicans for spurring economic growth and largely decried by Democrats for disproportionately benefitting the rich – are set to expire at the end of 2025. Add in some corporate tax changes and interest, and the impact on the deficit swells to $4.6 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That means the parties whom voters select to control the White House and Congress next year will be particularly consequential. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the presumptive 2024 presidential nominees, have already laid out general positions on how they’d handle the lapsing provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, one of the signature achievements of Trump and the GOP-led Congress in his first term. Trump and Biden’s Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen are scheduled to speak Thursday to business leaders at different venues, where they are expected to touch on tax provisions. In keeping with Biden’s long-standing policy promises, the president has said that he would allow the income tax cuts for the rich to expire while protecting those who earn less than $400,000 annually from any tax hikes. Plus, he has proposed raising the corporate tax rate to 28%, up from the 21% rate that the TCJA put in place permanently – which, along with higher taxes on the wealthy, would help pay for extending tax cuts for most other Americans, he argues.