President Obama’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2016 will be his seventh budget in a row that has new tax hikes. Details of the budget proposal will be released Monday and are expected to be similar to Obama’s State of the Union proposals.
Here’s a rundown of some of the tax hikes Obama has proposed in every budget.
FY 2016
Obama wants to raise the capital gains tax rate on high earners to 28 percent from 23.8 percent. He will also propose a new tax on big banks with over $50 billion in assets. Overall, these changes would combine for a $320 billion tax increase over 10 years. Obama has dropped his proposal to tax 529 college savings accounts.
FY 2015
In his last budget, all of Obama’s tax proposals would have increased revenues. The biggest tax hike proposal would limit tax deductions for high earners to 28 percent of their value, raising $498 billion over 10 years. Obama also proposed changes to the death tax that would have amounted to a $96 billion tax increase. Overall, the proposal would have raised $1.4 trillion in new tax revenue.
FY 2014
All of the tax proposals in FY 2014 also increase revenue. Obama again proposed limiting the value of tax deductions to 28 percent for high earners, a $493 billion tax increase. Obama also wanted to double the excise tax on tobacco products, and index the tax to inflation so that it would rise every year, amounting to an $83 billion tax increase on smokers. Changes to estate and gift taxes, like taxing the two at a maximum 45 percent, would be a $77 billion tax hike.
FY 2013
Some proposals for FY2013 would have cut taxes, but Obama still wanted to impose a limit on tax deductions for high earners would have raised taxes by $523 billion over 10 years. He also wanted to change the international tax system to raise $168 billion over 10 years, the second biggest revenue increase of the FY2013 budget proposal.
FY 2012
A scaled-down version of Obama’s limit on deductions for high earners would have raised $293 billion over 10 years. Cracking down on international tax avoidance would have raised $133 billion over 10 years.
FY 2011
Just before Obamacare was passed, Obama proposed a budget listing modifications of the healthcare system as a $743 billion tax hike. The Obama administration didn’t provide details of the changes, it just listed the $743 billion tax hike as a placeholder. He again wanted to limit the rate at which itemized deductions can reduce tax liability to 28 percent, which would have raised $289 billion over 10 years. He also wanted to impose a “Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee” on big banks that would have raised $90 billion.
FY 2010
Obama’s first budget proposal included changes to climate policy, such as cap-and-trade, that would have been a $632 billion tax hike over 10 years. Obama also proposed cracking down on international tax compliance, raising $161 billion over 10 years.
Estimates from FY 2010 to 2015 come from the CBO. Descriptions of tax changes are not comprehensive.
Many of Obama’s budget proposals cut net tax revenue relative to baseline estimates of future revenue. However, these proposals often took advantage of budgetary scoring quirks. For example, Obama’s budgets sometimes extended the expiring Bush tax cuts, giving Obama credit for collecting less revenue even though most of the cuts were likely to be extended anyway.
Still, Congressional Budget Office analyses of Obama’s past budget proposals all show tax revenue rising faster than economic growth. While the overall tax burden is greater, it may be caused by economic growth pushing more filers into higher tax brackets.
It’s also worth noting that none of Obama’s budget proposals so far have balanced the federal budget within 10 years.
For a more comprehensive list of Obama’s tax hike proposals, aside from his official budgets, Americans for Tax Reform has a list of 442 tax hikes since 2009.
