Joe Biden: “No billionaire should pay less in taxes than a teacher or firefighter”

Tax the rich —to tax (more) the rich, translated into Spanish— is one of the sociopolitical movements that gained strength in the United States with the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House, since the tycoon notoriously reduced the tax pressure on the more powerful.

With Joe Biden at the helm, they seek to reverse the tortilla: Let those who have more pay more. In front of Congress, the president requested a few weeks ago that a minimum tax of 25% be applied to billionaires, The Washington Post reported at the time.

There are still no answers, so Biden demanded that they act now. “Congress, pass my minimum tax on billionaires,” he wrote on Twitter.

“Now we have around 1,000 billionaires. The average tax is 8%, and that’s wrong. Hence the minimum tax. No billionaire should pay less in taxes than a teacher or firefighter.”

In addition, Biden assured that in his administration no one who earns less than US$400,000 a year will pay an additional penny in taxes; ergo, for those who receive an amount greater than the aforementioned, it would rise from the current 37% to 39.6%, since the current tax model “is unfair.”

Finally, it is contemplated that investors who earn at least US$1 million pay a rate of 39.6% (currently it is 20%).

Why raise the tax on those who have more?

From the International Monetary Fund (IMF), they insist that governments — particularly in Latin America — must modify their tax systems because “the rich can avoid paying taxes or not submit to them thanks to exceptions.”

Thus, in the face of latent inflation and the increase in poverty, “fiscal policies that force the rich to pay their proportional part as part of the solution” must be established and, with this, reduce inequalities.