Millionaires urge Democrats to include billionaire tax in spending bill

A group of about 250 millionaires on Monday urged top Democrats to include a proposal to tax billionaires’ investment gains annually in their social-spending package, after the proposal was left out of a framework the White House released last week.

“Unless Congress acts now, billionaires will continue to be allowed by Congress to pay far less than their fair share of taxes,” the millionaires wrote in a letter to congressional leaders and the chairs of Congress’s tax committees.

The letter was organized by Americans for Tax Fairness, the Patriotic Millionaires and Responsible Wealth.

Democrats are aiming to pass their social spending bill — which includes spending and tax cuts in areas such as child care, health care and climate — as soon as this week.

The White House on Thursday released a $1.75 trillion framework for the package that outlined several ways to offset the cost of the bill, including a surtax on multimillionaires’ incomes, a minimum tax for large corporations and increased funding for the IRS to do enforcement.

The framework did not include a proposal from Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to tax billionaires’ investment gains annually, rather than when the investments are sold. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) had raised concerns about the proposal, as had some House Democrats.

The group of millionaires said in their letter that they support the tax increases for high-income households that are included in the White House framework, but that even with these provisions many billionaires could pay little-to-no taxes.

“Moving the Billionaire’s Income Tax forward will ensure that, in addition to the major strides proposed in the current Build Back Better Framework, there would be even greater fiscal responsibility and historic movement towards a truly fair tax code,” the millionaires wrote.

The millionaires also said that the billionaire tax proposal would raise hundreds of billions of dollars and is popular with the public.

“We have a rare opportunity to reform our broken tax code that has for far too long given the very wealthiest ways to avoid paying their share,” the millionaires wrote.