President Joe Biden has often said he would not raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000. He said it during a 2020 interview with ABC’s “20/20” and, most recently, during the June 27, 2024 debate on CNN. But as recently as an April 23, 2024 social media post, Biden said of the 2017 Trump tax cut, “That tax cut is going to expire. If I’m re-elected, it’s going to stay expired.”
If the Trump tax cut is allowed to expire in 2025, people making less than $400,000 will get a tax increase, according to the left-leaning Center On Budget and Policy Priorities.
CBPP says people with incomes under $27,300 would pay $70, on average, more in federal income tax. Those between $27,300 and $53,400 would get a $390 tax hike, and people earning between $53,400 and $91,700 would pay $910 more. The tax hike for people with incomes between $91,700 and $153,800 would be $1,680, and those between $153,800 and $308,900 would pay $2,930 more.
Biden’s proposed budget says the middle-class tax cuts would be extended, but that requires a bill to be passed by the House and the Senate (along with many large tax increases that would not get through a Republican-controlled House or Senate.
The Trump tax cuts expire automatically, and if that happens, the middle-class will certainly get a tax increase.
In Kansas, the Tax Foundation says the average tax increase would be $2,248 if the Trump tax cuts are allowed to expire.
“Raising taxes when so many people in Kansas and across the country are having difficulty making ends meet is reckless,” said Vance Ginn, senior fellow at The Sentinel’s owner, Kansas Policy Institute, and former chief economist of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. “Add the fact that letting the Trump tax cuts expire would break the Biden administration’s promise not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $400,000, and there is an ensuing economic and political crisis. Instead, the Trump tax cuts should be improved on and made permanent while reducing government spending to pay for it.”
As the election season unfolds, taxpayers should ask every federal candidate whether they will unequivocally vote to extend the Trump tax cuts or what conditions they would require to do so.
If you can’t get a straight answer, you can count on them wanting to raise your taxes.
