Clinton announces details of tax plan to ensure wealthiest pay their fair share

Hillary Clinton announced the details of her tax plan to ensure the wealthiest individuals pay their fair share, while making investments that will create good-paying jobs and raise middle class incomes.

As part of her plan, Clinton would shut down the so-called “private tax system” by closing egregious loopholes that let multi-millionaires and billionaires avoid paying their fair share of U.S. taxes and restore basic fairness to the taxation of multi-million dollar estates. The plan’s details follow Clinton’s announcement yesterday of a new four-percent surcharge on those who make more than $5 million per year. Additionally, her plan affirms her call for the “Buffett Rule” itself, which would ensure those making more than $1 million per year pay at least an effective tax rate of 30 percent.

“My plan is kind of simple: We go after the wealthy to pay for what the middle class, working and poor people need,” Hillary Clinton said at an organizing event in Ames, Iowa, today.

For more than a decade, Clinton has called for estate tax reform, and her plan calls for returning the estate tax to 2009 parameters, lowering the exemption to $7 million per couple, and raising the rate to 45 percent. This tax would only impact the wealthiest 4 out of every 1,000 estates in the U.S.

Additionally, by ending egregious loopholes, her plan would shut down the so-called “private tax system” where tax lawyers and personal accountants help multi-millionaires shelter their income and avoid U.S. taxes. Her plan ends the Bermuda reinsurance loophole exploited by high-income money managers, as well as tax gaming that allows them to take advantage of complex derivative trades to lower their tax bill. It also closes the “Romney Loophole,” which allows the wealthiest Americans to shelter many millions of dollars in tax-preferred retirement accounts. (The GAO estimates that roughly 1,000 wealthy taxpayers have accumulated close to $100 billion in retirement accounts.) Clinton’s plan also affirms her near-decade-long commitment to close the “carried interest” loophole that allows wealthy money managers to avoid paying ordinary income tax rates on their earnings.

Clinton would also enact the “Buffett Rule” – the proposal named after Warren Buffett, who has endorsed Clinton, which ensures that no millionaire would pay a lower effective tax rate than their secretary. This proposal ensures that anyone making more than $1 million per year must pay at least a 30 percent effective tax rate.

As announced yesterday, Clinton’s four-percent “Fair Share Surcharge” on Americans who make more than $5 million per year would only affect the top 0.02 percent of taxpayers. The remaining 99.98 percent of taxpayers would be unaffected. Clinton has pledged that she will not raise taxes on middle-class families and has already proposed tax relief for college and health care costs.

In sum, the proposals released today will raise up to $500 billion in revenue over 10 years for investments that will create good-paying jobs, drive strong growth and raise incomes for middle-class families.

To read a fact sheet on Clinton’s plan, click here.