Tax Day reveals a major split in how Joe Biden and Donald Trump would govern
WASHINGTON — Tax Day reveals a major division in how Joe Biden and Donald Trump would govern: The presidential candidates have conflicting ideas about how much to reveal about their own finances and the best ways to stimulate the economy through tax policy.
Biden, the incumbent Democratic president, plans to release his income tax returns on Monday, the IRS filing deadline. And on Tuesday he will give a speech in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on why the wealthy should pay more taxes to reduce the federal deficit and help fund programs for the poor and middle class.
Biden can proudly say that he was largely penniless for much of his decades-long career in public service, unlike Trump, who inherited hundreds of millions of dollars from his father and used his billionaire status to launch a TV show and later to launch a presidential election. campaign.
“For 36 years, I was listed as the poorest man in Congress,” Biden told donors in California in February. “No joke.”
In 2015, Trump declared as part of his candidacy: “I am really rich.”
The Republican former president has argued that voters don’t need to see his tax records and that past financial disclosures are more than sufficient. He argues that keeping taxes low for the wealthy will boost investment and create more jobs, while tax increases would crush an economy still recovering from inflation that hit a four-decade peak in 2022.
“Biden wants to give the IRS even more money by proposing the largest tax increase on the American people in history, while they are already being robbed by his record high inflation crisis,” said Karoline Leavitt, press secretary for the Trump campaign.
The split goes beyond an ideological difference and poses a very real challenge for whoever wins the November election. At the end of 2025, many of the tax cuts that Trump signed into law in 2017 will expire — setting off an avalanche of choices about how much people across the income spectrum should pay as the national debt is expected to rise to unprecedented levels.
Including interest costs, extending all tax breaks through 2033 could add another $3.8 trillion to the national debt, according to an analysis last year by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
Biden would like to keep most of the tax breaks, based on his promise that no one earning less than $400,000 will have to pay more. But he released a budget proposal this year with tax hikes on the wealthy and corporations that would raise $4.9 trillion in revenue and reduce projected deficits by $3.2 trillion over a decade.
Still, he’s telling voters he’s all for letting the Trump-era tax cuts expire.
‘Does anyone here think the tax law is fair? Raise your hand,” Biden said Tuesday during a speech at Union Station in Washington to a crowd inclined to dislike Trump’s broad tax cuts, which helped many in the middle class but disproportionately benefited wealthier households .
“It has made the national debt bigger than any presidential term in history,” Biden continued. “And it expires next year. Guess what? I hope to become president because it is expiring – it continues to expire.”
Trump has called for higher tariffs on foreign-made goods, which are taxes that could hit consumers in the form of higher prices. But his campaign is pushing for tax cuts while promising that a Trump presidency would reduce a national debt that has been rising for decades, including during his tenure in the Oval Office.
“When President Trump is back in the White House, he will call for more tax cuts for all Americans and revive America’s energy industry to reduce inflation, lower the cost of living and pay down our debt.” Leavitt said.
Most economists say Trump’s tax cuts cannot generate enough growth to pay off the national debt. An analysis released Friday by Oxford Economics found that a “full-fledged Trump” policy of tax cuts, higher tariffs and blocking immigration would slow growth and increase inflation.
Among Biden’s proposals is a “minimum income tax for billionaires” that would apply a minimum rate of 25% to households with a net worth of at least $100 million.
The tax would directly target billionaires like Trump, who refused to release his personal taxes as presidents have traditionally done. But six years of his tax returns were released in 2022 by Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee.
In 2018, Trump earned more than $24 million and paid about 4% of that in federal income taxes. The congressional panel also found that the IRS had delayed legally mandated audits of Trump during his presidency, with the panel concluding that the audit process was “dormant at best.”
Biden has publicly released more than two decades of his tax returns. In 2022, he and his wife Jill earned $579,514 and paid nearly 24% of that in federal income taxes, more than double the rate Trump paid.
Trump has maintained that his tax records are complicated due to the use of various tax credits and past business losses, which have allowed him to avoid taxes in some cases. He also previously refused to release his tax returns, claiming the IRS was auditing him for pre-presidential records.
His finances recently got a boost from the stock market debut of Trump Media, which controls Trump’s favorite social media channel, Truth Social. Share prices initially soared, adding billions of dollars to Trump’s fortune, but investors have since soured on the company and shares were down more than 50% from their peak on Friday.
The former president is also on the hook for $542 million due to legal rulings in a civil fraud case and fines owed to writer E. Jean Carroll over statements Trump made that damaged her reputation after she accused him of sexual assault.
In the civil fraud case, Judge Arthur Engoron of New York looked at the Trump Organization’s financial records and, after looking at the inflated assets, concluded that “the frauds found here jump off the page and shock the conscience.”
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Colvin reported from Palm Beach, Florida.