Over the course of her campaign for president, Sen. Elizabeth Warren has proposed more than $20.35 trillion in tax increases. The taxes have been sweeping — hitting payrolls, investments, wealth, military contractors, and guns and ammo. They will hammer billionaires and middle-class families.
Below, I’ve compiled an itemized list of all the taxes we have a specific estimate for, as well as additional tax increases she has proposed for which there is no estimate, and other ways she anticipates raising revenues by an additional $3.7 trillion without explicit tax increases. This list will be updated as it grows over the course of the campaign. But to provide a sense of scale, even up to this point, the $24 trillion in total revenue Warren has vowed to raise would eclipse the $23.4 trillion in total income taxes that the Congressional Budget Office currently expects the U.S. government to collect over the next decade.
Healthcare payroll tax: $8.8 trillion.
This is supposed to be levied on employers to pay for healthcare for everybody, but economists have long concluded that such taxes inevitably get passed on to workers, which would include the middle class.
Wealth taxes: $3.75 trillion.
Warren has spent much of her campaign campaigning on a surtax on those with over $50 million in wealth. As part of her healthcare proposal, she wants to charge billionaires an extra 6%.
Investment tax: $2 trillion.
This would make the top 1% of households pay a tax on investment gains each year, regardless of whether they actually realized those gains by selling those investments for a profit.
Foreign earnings tax/tax on foreign firms: $1.65 trillion.
This would raise taxes on American companies’ foreign profits and tax foreign companies based on their domestic sales.
Asset depreciation tax: $1.25 trillion.
This would make companies deduct the depreciation of investments as they depreciate, rather allowing them to do it all at once.
Repealing Trump tax cuts: $1 trillion.
Warren has proposed to help pay for an additional $1 trillion in funding for a transition to renewable energy, “by reversing Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals and giant corporations.”
“Real” corporate profits tax: $1 trillion.
A 7% surtax on corporate profits above $100 million.
Financial transactions tax: $800 billion.
This would slap a tax on the sale of bonds, stocks, or derivatives.
Big banks tax: $100 billion
A fee on the “forty or so” biggest banks.
These total: $20.35 trillion.
Additional tax increases without specific revenue estimates:
Social Security tax hike: Warren has proposed increasing taxes on the income and investments of those earning over $250,000 to pay for an expansion of Social Security.
Excessive lobbying tax: She has proposed taxing businesses that spend over $500,000 on lobbying. This one is more punitive than intended as a money raiser.
Guns and ammo taxes: She wants to increase excise taxes to 30% on guns, and 50% on ammo.
Tax on military contractors: Military contractors who do not achieve net-zero carbon emissions would pay a 1% tax on the value of any contract.
Additional revenue raisers that Warren is claiming:
Reducing tax evasion and fraud: $2.3 trillion.
Warren’s healthcare plan claims she can raise this much by stepping up enforcement.
Increasing taxable income: $1.15 trillion.
Warren predicts that when the government is paying for healthcare, it will increase worker salaries, thus generating more income subject to taxation. Currently, health benefits are not taxed.
Fewer healthcare tax deductions: $250 billion.
Warren posits that because people’s out of pocket costs would be going down, they wouldn’t have to worry about putting money in tax-free health savings accounts, and they wouldn’t be taking deductions for medical expenses. That would then increase tax revenue.
