Democrats Hammer Out Novel Plan to Tax Billionaires and Corporate Giants
The New York Times
New proposals would fund social and climate programs by tapping billionaires’ unrealized gains and by ensuring that the biggest companies cannot avoid income taxes altogether.
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats rushed on Tuesday to nail down the details of a groundbreaking tax on billionaires’ wealth, part of an elaborate menu of tax increases to finance a significantly scaled-back bill that would strengthen the social safety net and address climate change.
Democrats’ plans to pay for about $1.5 trillion in social policy and climate spending could prove to be the most innovative components of the party’s domestic legislation, a top priority, which was once envisioned as a transformative cradle-to-grave initiative to vault a stagnant working class into prosperity. Now, even as President Biden and his allies cut down the plan to ensure it can pass even with Democrats’ razor-thin edge in Congress, they are toiling to agree on new tax policies that could have far-reaching consequences.
Among them is a measure Senate Democrats presented on Tuesday that would impose a 15 percent minimum tax rate on corporations based on the profits they report to their shareholders, not what they show to the Internal Revenue Service.
