A majority of wealthy Americans say they support President Joe Biden’s plan to raise taxes on the wealthy, and they are even more eager than his administration to tax the world’s super-rich, a new poll shows.
According to a YouGov poll of Americans with assets over $1 million (excluding homes), nearly 60 percent favor raising marginal taxes on income over $100 million above the current level of 37 percent. Financial Times.
The poll also showed that 62% of U.S. millionaires support global efforts to prevent billionaires from fleeing countries with higher taxes.
What’s more, 59% favor the proposal to require the world’s billionaires to pay annual taxes equal to at least 2% of their total wealth. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen opposes the idea in its current form.
“We believe in progressive taxation. But the idea of taxing billionaires and redistributing the proceeds in some way through some common global arrangement — we don’t support the process of trying to achieve that. That’s something we can’t sign up to ,” she told wall street journal last month.
The poll comes as taxes become a key issue in the 2024 election. Biden has said he wants to raise the top marginal tax rate to 39.6%, which would apply to single households making more than $400,000 and married couples making more than $450,000 combined. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has said he wants to extend the tax cuts he enacted during his presidency. Otherwise, they will expire at the end of next year. Biden would also expand those cuts, except for the wealthy.
Billionaire Warren Buffett has long argued that those who can afford to pay more taxes should do so, famously saying that his secretary pays a higher tax rate than he does.
Meanwhile, other billionaires have also thrown their support behind both candidates. Blackstone Group CEOs Stephen Schwarzman and Miriam Adelson have endorsed Trump, and Pershing Square CEO Bill Ackman is reportedly leaning toward backing Trump. Tim Mellon, heir to the Mellon fortune, recently reported donating $50 million to a pro-Trump super PAC.
Also last week, billionaire and philanthropist Melinda French Gates endorsed a presidential candidate for the first time ever, expressing her disapproval in a CNN op-ed. Biden’s support. Michael Bloomberg announced a donation of $20 million to support Biden.
According to the Financial Times, another Financial Times-Michigan Ross poll of U.S. voters showed that 45% of high-income earners thought Biden would do better on the economy, more than those who thought Trump would do better. Trump would be 40% better.
