(The Center Square) – Four Pennsylvania Democrats support an effort to implement a wealth tax on fortunes above $50 million.
U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-2nd District, announced on March 27 that he, along with U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., are once again leading the effort in the U.S. House to pass the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act.
“A secretary shouldn’t pay a higher tax rate than the CEO,” Boyle said. “The current tax code is rigged against working people and the middle class. Our proposal finally changes this and makes billionaires pay their fair share.”
In addition to Boyle and Jayapal, the proposal is co-sponsored by 39 other Democrats, including U.S. Reps. Madeleine Dean, D-4th District; Chris Deluzio, D-17th District; and Summer Lee, D-12th District. Dean is a new backer of the legislation and had not signed onto the 2024 version.
The Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act would apply to the wealthiest 260,000 households in America, or the top 0.15%.
The bill would establish a 2% annual tax on the net worth of households and trusts valued at over $50 million, and an additional 1% annual surtax (3% total annual tax) on the net worth of households and trusts valued at over $1 billion, according to a press release. The bill also includes anti-evasion and avoidance measures, including $100 million in new funding for the IRS and a 40% “exit tax” on the wealth of ultra-millionaires and billionaires who renounce their citizenship to avoid the tax.
Citing new analysis from economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, who authored “The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay,” they said the bill would generate $6.2 trillion in revenue over the next decade, which they say is more than double the score of the bill when it was first introduced in 2021.
Zucman and Saez were the subjects of a New York Times profile in 2020 headlined “The Liberal Economists Behind the Wealth Tax Debate.”
Supporters of this legislation argue that the money generated from this wealth tax could pay for “universal, affordable child care, lower rents by building millions of new homes, slash child poverty by expanding the Child Tax Credit, lower the Medicare eligibility age to 55, offer universal paid family leave, and establish tuition-free community college.”
They also believe all of that could be accomplished via this wealth tax “without raising taxes on 99.85% of American households.”
The new analysis from Saez and Zucman states that “richest 0.1% of Americans hold nearly as much wealth as the bottom 90% of families combined.”
Nearly 40 unions, advocacy groups, and national organizations support the bill including the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the United Steelworkers.
This effort was originally introduced in March 2021 by Boyle and Jayapal for the U.S. House and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren in her respective chamber.
The 39 co-sponsors in addition to Boyle and Jayapal make the latest push the largest coalition of House supporters in comparison to previous efforts, although multiple Pennsylvania Democrats have backed the proposal along the way.
In addition to Boyle, Deluzio, and Lee, the 2024 effort also had support from U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans, D-3rd District, who is retiring at the end of his current term, and U.S. Rep. Susan Wild, D-7th District, who lost her bid for reelection in 2024 to Republican Ryan Mackenzie.
U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., is not one of the 11 U.S. Senators listed as co-sponsors for the proposal, although he is a supporter of the Billionaires Income Tax Act.
The effort led by Warren, Boyle, and others has not passed either the U.S. House or Senate in previous sessions.
However, CBS News reports that since then, some U.S. states including Massachusetts, California, and Washington, home to Jayapal, have passed new laws taxing the rich.
