Bernie Sanders proposed a 77 percent tax on billion-dollar estates Thursday as part of a broader policy to bolster the estate tax to combat inequality, the latest example of liberals bidding to move tax policy to the left ahead of the 2020 elections.
“From a moral, economic, and political perspective our nation will not thrive when so few have so much and so many have so little,” the Vermont independent senator said in a statement announcing his new legislation, the “For the 99.8% Act.”
Sanders’ estate tax would apply the 77 percent tax rate to estates above $1 billion, a return to the top estate tax rates around the midcentury. It would also apply progressive tax rates to estates of smaller sizes. Sanders’ office claimed that the tax would only affect the wealthiest 0.2 percent of Americans.
Under the tax law signed in 2017 by President Trump, estates under $22.8 million for married couples are exempted from the existing 40 percent estate tax, meaning that only a few thousand households are subject to the tax. Sanders’ bill would lower that threshold to $7 million and raise the rate to 45 percent.
Sanders, viewed as a potential top contender for the Democratic nomination for president, joins other hopefuls in rolling out aggressively populist tax policies that go beyond what past Democratic presidents have endorsed. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., for instance, has called for a new wealth tax, and others have backed much higher top income tax rates.
Congressional Republicans, in contrast, have introduced legislation to eliminate the estate tax — a longtime goal for conservatives and small business groups.
In announcing his proposal, Sanders outlined the effects that it would have on specific wealthy families. The Walton family, for instance, would face an estate tax of up to $130 billion under Sanders’ proposal, according to his office. The Kochs, major contributors to free market political groups, would owe an estate tax of up to $74 billion.
[Opinion: Democrats’ 2020 hopefuls are already moving too far left to beat Trump]
