In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on Thursday, Joe Biden threatened to repeal the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and also vowed to raise the U.S. corporate income tax rate on "Day One" -- giving America a higher tax rate than Communist China.

Here's the key exchanges:

Jake Tapper: "You vowed to undo President Trump's tax cuts."

Joe Biden: "Yes."

Tapper asked, "When would you make these changes? The economy is in a bad state right now."

Biden replied: "I'd make the changes on the corporate taxes on Day One. And the reason I would make the change in corporate taxes, it could raise $1.3 trillion if they start paying at 28% instead of 21%."

Biden's tax hike to 28% would give the United States a higher tax rate than Communist China's 25%.

Click here or below to watch the Biden tax hike threat:

Even Barack Obama has warned against raising taxes in an economic downturn.

If Biden and Harris repeal the tax cuts, as they have said countless times, the following will happen:

• A family of four earning the median income of $73,000 would see a $2,000 tax increase each year.
• A single parent (with one child) making $41,000 would see a $1,300 tax increase each year.
• The child tax credit will be cut in half.
• Millions of low and middle-income households would be stuck paying the Obamacare individual mandate tax of $695 - $2,085. This tax was zeroed out as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Biden has vowed to re-impose this tax.
• The USA would have the highest corporate income tax rate in the developed world, higher than China (25 percent), the United Kingdom (19 percent), Canada (26.8 percent), and Ireland (12.5 percent). 
• Small employers will face tax increases due to the increase in marginal income tax rates and the repeal of the TCJA 20% deduction for small business income.
• The Opportunity Zone program would be abolished. Opportunity Zones were created as part of the TCJA are already helping economically distressed areas across the country.
• Taxes would rise in every state and every congressional district.
• The Death Tax would ensnare more families and businesses.
• Utility bills would go up in all 50 states as a direct result of the corporate income tax increase.  
• Millions of households would see their standard deduction cut in half, adding to their tax complexity as they are forced to itemize their deductions and deal with the shoebox full of receipts on top of the refrigerator.
   

Even left-leaning media outlets have acknowledged the fact that the Trump tax cuts have helped middle income households:

• New York Times: "Most people got a tax cut."
• Washington Post: “Most Americans received a tax cut.”
• CNN's Jake Tapper: "The facts are, most Americans got a tax cut." 
• H&R Block: “The vast majority of people did get a tax cut.”
• CNN's Tapper also stated: "In fact, estimates from both sides of the political spectrum show that the majority of people in the United States of America did receive a tax cut."
• FactCheck.org: "Most people got some kind of tax cut in 2018 as a result of the law."
• FactCheck.org also stated: "The vast majority (82 percent) of middle-income earners — those with income between about $49,000 and $86,000 — received a tax cut that averaged about $1,050.
   

Americans for Tax Reform has compiled over 1,200 examples of how the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has helped businesses and households in all 50 states.

Americans for Tax Reform has released a letter in support of S. 1238, the "End-of-Year Fiscal Responsibility Act," legislation sponsored by Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa). S. 1238 caps the amount that federal agencies can spend in the final two months of the fiscal year.

If implemented, S. 1238 will save billions of dollars in taxpayer funds per year and bend Washington towards a path of fiscal restraint. 

ATR commends Senator Ernst for her leadership on fiscal restraint and urges all Senators to co-sponsor this legislation. 

Click here to read the full letter or see below: 

Dear Senator Ernst:  

I write in support of S. 1238, the “End-of-Year Fiscal Responsibility Act,” legislation that caps the amount that federal agencies can spend in the final two months of the fiscal year. If implemented, S. 1238 will save billions of dollars in taxpayer funds per year and bend Washington towards a path of fiscal responsibility.

Americans for Tax Reform commends you for your leadership on fiscal restraint and urges all members to co-sponsor this legislation.

Federal spending is completely out of control. Our national debt is $26 trillion and climbing. Congress has spent nearly $2.5 trillion this year in response to the Coronavirus pandemic, and Democrats want to spend trillions more.

Now more than ever, policymakers and bureaucrats alike have a duty to be responsible stewards of federal resources.

Currently, federal agencies are required to return any unused funding to the Treasury Department by the end of the fiscal year. While this seems like fiscally responsible policy, this system creates a perverse “use-it-or-lose-it” situation where agencies spend billions of dollars in the final two months of the fiscal year.

This is not a hypothetical scenario –during the final seven days of FY 2018, federal agencies spent a whopping $53 billion of taxpayer money on frivolous purchases unrelated to agency function. These purchases include $4.6 million on lobster tail and crab, $2.1 million on games and toys, $1.2 million on playgrounds, and $308,994 on alcohol.

To remedy this, S. 1238 limits an agency’s spending in the final two months of the fiscal year to the average amount the agency spent over the preceding ten months. This simple step will prevent bureaucrats from going on end-of-year spending binges to avoid sending money back to the Treasury.

Ultimately, the End-Of-Year Fiscal Responsibility Act is a commonsense piece of legislation that will save taxpayers billions of dollars in spending every year.

Onward,

Grover Norquist
President, Americans for Tax Reform

ATR president Grover Norquist recently joined Josiah Neeley and Doug McCullough on The Urbane Cowboys Podcast to discuss Joe Biden's tax plan and what changes in tax policy we could look forward to under a second term of President Trump.

When asked about Biden's tax plan, Norquist said:

"He has said repeatedly that, on day one, he will repeal the entire Trump, Republican tax cut… That means that the corporate rate, that was 35% under Biden and Obama--the highest in the world, Communist China being at 25%-- would be repealed. People were exporting capital from the United States. People in other countries were investing in other countries because we had higher business taxes than Communist China and Germany. All of these countries that we think of as not terribly attractive to investment were more attractive on their tax policy than the United States was. He wants to take the 21% rate that the Republicans passed and move it back to 35%. Sometimes his staff says 28%, but he is on record 10 times saying "repeal the whole thing…" The median income, family of four, would get a $2,000 tax increase, simply by repealing the Republican tax. So if you want to pay $2,000 more in taxes, vote for Biden. If you're a single parent, median income… it's a $1,300 tax increase."

"On the individual level, the Republicans doubled the per-child tax credit from $1,000 to $2,000. Biden says he'll get rid of that… You add to that, he wants to go back to Obamacare and bring back some of the tax increases in Obamacare that Republicans, over the years, have gotten rid of. The most obvious, painful, destructive one is the five million American households that, every year that Obama was president, paid a tax of $695 per person in the household if they refused to buy Obamacare. The $695 did not get you Obamacare: this is not, "pay a tax and get some benefit." This is the penalty, the tax penalty, for refusing the wonderful opportunity of Obamacare which you don't want, which you couldn't afford. Obamacare is pretty expensive… Three-quarters of the people who were hit with that tax each year earned less than $50,000 a year."

“He wants to double the capital gains tax… Now we’re getting out of the zone of just taking away the tax cuts that the Republicans put forward...  On top of that is the energy tax/the gasoline tax/the carbon tax, he also wants to double the capital gains rate to 40%. If you remember the earlier lie that no one who earned less than $400,000 a year would ever see their taxes raised, he’s very specific when he gleefully says, “Everybody will pay a 40% capital gains tax.” Which, by the way, would be twice what Communist China has. When people say, “Oh, Biden. He’s a moderate, right? Because he’s not as crazy as Bernie.” Well, he’s to the left of Communist China...” When he says it, he says, “Every single American will pay a 40% capital gains tax."”

When asked about what the Trump administration could do in a second term, Norquist explained:

"Well, we can go with things that the President and his allies talk about. Regarding a number of tax cuts in the last 10 years, on the individual level--their goal is to make them all permanent… The goal is to make sure the doubling of the per-child tax credit is permanent, not just for ten years, and the lower individual rates are made permanent. Because businesses have to plan many decades in the future, all of the corporate changes were made permanent, with offsetting revenue, but the individual rates were not made permanent. The Republican goal is to make that permanent, or at least kick it out another ten years... The President has also talked about indexing capital gains for inflation, so that if you buy a stock, and then 50 years later you sell it when you retire, you don't pay capital gains on the inflation that accumulated over 50 years… On average, 40% of the gain when you buy and sell stocks is inflation. So basically, it is a huge capital gains tax cut, but it just makes it clear: if you hold onto something for a long time, you shouldn't be taxed on the inflation gain, only the real gain. The President has talked about doing this through executive order, which he has the power to do."

Listen the the podcast here. 

Ways and Means Republican Leader Kevin Brady (R-Texas) today introduced the “Support for Workers, Families, and Social Security Act,” legislation that provides a tax cut for low- and middle-income workers through the end of the year.

"Congressman Brady should be applauded for his legislation cutting payroll taxes. This will increase take-home pay and increase the value of work for Americans across the country and builds on the Trump-GOP effort to enact tax relief and deregulation so that the economy can continue recovering and Americans can go continue going back to work,” said Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform.

This legislation builds on President Trump’s payroll tax executive order which deferred social security payroll taxes from September 1 to December 31, 2020.  This proposal makes the moratorium permanent so that taxpayers do not have to pay back payroll tax relief next year.

The social security tax is a 12.4 percent tax split between employees and employers. Americans pay a 6.2 percent payroll tax on wages out of every paycheck, while employers pay the other 6.2 percent. This legislation suspends the 6.4 percent paid by workers through the end of the year.

This will lead to significant tax reduction. For instance, a family earning $120,000 per year could see a tax cut of $2,500 while an individual making $55,000 could see a tax cut of over $1,100.

The legislation also ensures self-employed Americans received the same tax relief. Self-employed Americans pay the full 12.4 percent tax so there was some uncertainty whether they would receive relief under President Trump’s deferral.

In addition, the proposal protects seniors by ensuring the social security trust fund is not depleted by this tax cut.

This legislation should be supported by Congress and signed into law.

Importantly, Democrats supported payroll tax cuts a decade ago under when they were enacted in 2011 and 2012 under President Obama.

In fact, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Democrat Vice Presidential Candidate Joe Biden repeatedly praised payroll tax cuts noting that they would put more money in the pockets of American families. 

For instance, on December 13, 2011, Speaker Pelosi called on Congress to enact a payroll tax cut as it would benefit middle class families:

“This is about a thriving middle class.  It's about a payroll tax cut that does what it sets out to do, puts $1,500 in the pockets of Americas families who need it, who spend it and in doing so inject, inject demand--demand, demand--into our economy which further creates jobs.”

Similarly, on May 22, 2012, Biden highlighted the administration’s efforts to cut the payroll tax, noting that it would reduce taxes for 98 percent of Americans:

“In December of 2010 we passed the payroll tax that gave each and every American an average of $1,000 tax cut. One thousand dollars less was taken out of their pay in payroll taxes. We repassed that not long ago, allowing another $1,500 to go into people's pockets instead of going into taxes. Ninety-eight percent of the American people -- they get a pay stub.  They pay payroll taxes. So when you cut taxes for people with a -- with a payroll tax, 98 percent of the American people are getting a tax cut.”

Given this past support for payroll taxes, Democrats should have no problem supporting and voting for Congressman Brady’s Support for Workers, Families, and Social Security Act.