Remember during the general election when Biden said he wouldn't undo the Trump tax cuts?
That is no longer his stance.
President-elect Joe Biden said in a new interview that he wants to hike tax rates back to their highest levels under the George W. Bush administration — undercutting his promise not to increase taxes for Americans earning less than $400,000 a year.
Biden outlined his economic platform in an interview with New York Times’ columnist Thomas Friedman, and said he would ensure long-term growth by ensuring “everybody pays their fair share, for God’s sake.”
“And by that fair share, I mean there’s no reason why the top tax rate shouldn’t be 39.6 percent, which it was in the beginning of the Bush administration,” he said.
“There’s no reason why 91 Fortune 500 companies should be paying zero in taxes,” he went on.
The nation’s highest marginal income tax rate was 39.6 percent for Americans earning at least $374,000 when Bush made a series of sweeping cuts in 2001 and 2003, known as the “Bush tax cuts,” reducing the marginal tax rate to 35 percent.
U.S. Vice President Joseph "Joe" Biden speaks during the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, U.S., on Monday, Jan. 9, 2017. Investors focused on drug pricing and health-care law changes, deployment of capital toward M&A, innovation and R&D productivity, tax changes, and regulatory environment at the FDA. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images