Biden’s Twitter is fact-checked for claim billionaires only pay 3% tax as Elon Musk disputes tweet
Biden’s Twitter account has been fact-checked for claim U.S. billionaires pay an average of just 3% in taxes after Elon Musk disputed the statement, saying he personally paid “more income taxes than anyone ever in the history of the earth”
- Biden said billionaires pay an average of 3% in taxes after claiming it was 8% last month
- Both Twitter and fact-checking services have disputed the White House’s claims
A tweet from President Biden has been fact-checked and labeled “incorrect” after the White House claimed the average billionaire paid 3 percent in taxes.
The president’s account tweeted an image of Biden on Saturday with a quote that read, “Do you know the average taxes billionaires pay? Three percent. No billionaire should pay lower taxes than someone who works as a teacher or a firefighter.’
Accompanying text read: “Look, I think you should be able to become a billionaire if you can earn it, but just pay your fair share. I think you have to pay a minimum of 25 percent tax. It’s about basic honesty.’
But it’s not clear where the three percent figure comes from, as it contradicts previous White House data and independent analysis.
Twitter boss Elon Musk also weighed in, questioning the statements and claiming he paid “more income taxes than anyone in the history of the Earth for 2021 and will do so again in 2022.”
The president’s account tweeted an image of Biden on Saturday with a quote that read, “Do you know the average taxes billionaires pay? Three percent.’
Beneath Biden’s tweet, a rather embarrassingly placed “added context” tab discredits the 3 percent claim, labeling it “false”
“Look, I think you should be able to become a billionaire if you can earn it, but just pay your fair share,” said Biden — pictured as he walked into the White House on Friday —
Beneath Biden’s tweet, a rather embarrassingly placed “added context” tab discredited the three percent claim, labeling it “false.”
“This is not right,” it says. The average income tax rate in 2020 was 13.6 percent. The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid an average rate of 25.99 percent, more than eight times higher than the 3.1 percent average rate paid by the bottom half of taxpayers. It increased from 20.1 percent/2019 to 22.2 percent/2020.”
Despite the recent claim, Biden’s tweet also contradicts White House data released last month.
In a February press release, the White House said, “In a normal year, billionaires pay an average tax rate of just eight percent.” The data comes from a fact sheet titled, “The Biden Economic Plan Is Working”
Again, in 2021, the White House gave the same figure of eight percent. The White House statement said: “OMB and CEA economists’ analysis estimates that America’s wealthiest 400 billionaire families paid an average of only 8.2 percent of their income — including income from their assets that remains largely untaxed — to federal individual income taxes between 2010 and 2018.”
Twitter CEO Elon Must also stepped in to dispute the figure.
The Tesla and SpaceX billionaire said he paid 53 percent in taxes on his Tesla stock options to the federal and state coffers.
Musk claimed he “paid more income tax than anyone in Earth’s history before 2021 and will do so again in 2022”
Musk said he agreed that everyone should pay taxes and joked that he would be “curious to hear how these other “billionaires” are so good at dodging taxes.”
Twitter CEO Elon Must also stepped in to contest the White House figure. Musk is pictured in February 2022 at SpaceX’s Starbase facility near Boca Chica Village in South Texas
Musk also claimed that he paid “more income taxes than anyone else in Earth’s history for 2021 and will do so again in 2022.”
He said he agreed that everyone should pay taxes and joked that he would be “curious to hear how these other ‘billionaires’ are so good at evading taxes.”
The Poynter Institute Politifact looked to clarify the statistics. The fact-checker has said that even Biden’s eight percent figure doesn’t match the actual numbers.
Politifact said, “Both the three percent figure and the eight percent figure refer to calculations made on the basis of a theoretical proposal. Under current law, the 25 highest-earning billionaires paid an average tax rate of 16 percent.”
DailyMail.com has reached out to the White House for comment on the tweet.
But this is not the first time that the White House claims to have been fact-checked on Twitter.
In November, a Twitter context box questioned a White House claim that the Biden administration was responsible for the largest annual deficit reduction ever.
A comment below pointed out that the gap between federal government revenues and expenditures was still the fourth largest in history.
Last year, officials also had to delete a tweet taking credit for a record increase in Social Security benefits after users pointed out it was an automatic increase based on high inflation.