Expert: Watch Out for Biden's 'Undercover Tax on Just About Everybody'

By Jack Cowhick March 23, 2021 at 3:11pm

According to one expert, Americans of all socio-economic statuses should be cautious of President Joe Biden’s new tax plan.

Rob Luna, the CEO and Chief Investing Strategist at Surevest, told Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria” on Tuesday that Biden’s new tax proposals will implement an “undercover tax on just about everybody.”

Biden plans to increase taxes on people making over $400,000 annually, as well as establishing a 15 percent minimum corporate tax applying to companies with an income of at least $100 million, according to Investopedia.

However, Fox News host Maria Bartiromo brought light to a misleading part of the proposed policy — the $400,000 threshold.

While initially appearing as a tax on individuals making as much annually, White House press secretary Jen Psaki clarified in a news conference last week that Biden’s tax hike actually applied to families, or married couples. This drops the income amount to just $200,000 a year per person.

Luna told Bartiromo that in large cities like New York City and Los Angeles, “$200,000 barely gets you by.”

“So, I think this is an undercover tax on just about everybody,” Luna explained. “And, you know, the issue I really have with this capital gains tax and taxing that income is I work with a lot of small business owners, a lot of entrepreneurs. So let’s remember: A lot of these people, as they get towards retirement, look to sell all or part of their business.”

Will the Biden administration reconsider its tax hike?

Luna is right. Jeff Spross, in an Op-Ed for The Week, told the stories of multiple men and women with family incomes of close to $200,000 who are still barely scraping by day-to-day.

One Jessica Wang, whose family reportedly makes $150,000 a year, told the outlet, “We cannot buy a home here, our cars are both over 10 years old, and we don’t eat out more than a couple of times per month. We have a college fund for our son, but no real savings.”

The Dunhams, a Minnesota family making between $200,000 and $400,000 per year, told Spross they “live under mountains of debt” and “work brutal hours.”

“Each of us lives in constant terror of falling asleep in a chair or behind the wheel or at the operating table and causing harm to someone or having something awful happen to our children because we couldn’t stay awake,” the family said.

It’s easy to hear a dollar amount and see these people as just another family of movie villains making five times the national annual income, but it’s important to cut through the rhetoric and look at these people’s real lives.

In reality, as even The Washington Post pointed out, taxes would apply to families making over the $400,000 threshold rather than individuals.

According to Luna, it’s not the top 1 percent of the country but “real Americans” who will feel Biden’s taxes.

He told Bartiromo, “This is the money that they borrowed on credit cards — blood, sweat and tears — sweat equity that they put into these businesses. And when they want to take a little bit of that off the table to help supplement their retirement, it’s not just their tech stocks that they invest in that’s getting taxed, but it’s their personal businesses also.”

Unfortunately, the Biden administration isn’t actually concerned with everyday citizens, as the president’s proposed tax hikes show. As Luna said, “These are real Americans that are being taxed who are going to feel this.”

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