Biden to Tout Taxes on Buybacks, Billionaires

U.S. President Joe Biden will renew his calls for higher taxes on billionaires and corporate stock buybacks in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, part of his push to restructure the world's largest economy to be less favorable to the very wealthy.

These proposals, which mostly require Congress to pass new laws, are unlikely to become reality, given Republicans' control of the House of Representatives. Republicans' have pushed to slash funding for the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. tax agency, and could push for an extension of tax cuts passed under former President Donald Trump that mostly benefit the wealthy.

Quadrupling tax on corporate stock buybacks: Biden earlier signed into law a 1% tax on corporate stock buybacks, which the White House says "encourages businesses to invest in their growth and productivity." During the speech he will call for that to be quadrupled, the White House said.

A minimum tax rate for billionaires: Billionaires pay just an 8% tax rate on average in the United States, the White House says. Biden will ask for a tax to "make sure that the wealthiest Americans no longer pay a tax rate lower than teachers and firefighters," the White House said without adding specifics.

Expand the Child Tax Credit: Biden will call on Congress to renew the Child Tax Credit that was passed with Covid-19 relief bills, and lifted 3.6 million children out of poverty before they expired in December of 2021.