WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats detailed a 15% minimum tax on large companies’ income on Tuesday, refreshing an earlier revenue-raising proposal as they try to generate enough money to pay for President Biden’s social-spending and climate-change agenda.
The plan, backed by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Angus King, I-Maine, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., would affect about 200 companies and could raise hundreds of billions of dollars, the sponsors said.
“Many profitable, U.S.-based corporations pay zero federal corporate income tax,” King said. “Our proposal is about simple fiscal sense and common fairness.”
The plan is designed to raise money from companies without raising the 21% corporate income-tax rate. Democrats had long thought they could raise that rate—set in the 2017 Republican tax law—to at least 25%. The House Ways and Means Committee in September approved about $2 trillion in tax increases without using a corporate minimum tax, instead relying on increases in marginal tax rates on corporations, individuals and capital gains.
But objections from Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., to the tax-rate increases sent lawmakers searching for alternatives as they attempt to cobble together money to cover nearly $2 trillion in spending over a decade. In addition to the corporate minimum tax, Senate Democrats are also proposing to impose annual taxes on billionaires’ unrealized capital gains; new details on that idea are expected soon.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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