Twitter Fact-Check Targets Biden’s Claim About Billionaire Tax Rate

President Joe Biden recently released a bloated $6.8 trillion budget proposal, claiming the massive cost would be largely offset by tax hikes on the rich.

In a subsequent tweet, he repeated previous claims that the nation’s top earners are not paying their “fair share” in taxes.

The post included a quote in which he falsely asserted that “the average tax billionaires pay” is just 3%.

“No billionaire should be paying a lower tax than somebody working as a school teacher or a firefighter,” Biden added.

Twitter included as an addendum a post citing Tax Foundation data disproving the president’s claim.

“This is incorrect,” the user-supplied fact-check states. “Avg income tax rate in 2020 was 13.6%. Top 1% of taxpayers paid a 25.99% avg rage, more than eight times higher than the 3.1% avg rate paid by the bottom half of taxpayers.”

Even the same mainstream fact-checkers that frequently defend leftist politicians and ideals have acknowledged that Biden’s tax-the-rich rhetoric is not based in reality.

In response to a pair of statements he made last month, FactCheck.org wrote: “Biden’s statements refer to a White house economic analysis that included earnings on unsold stock as income. After factoring in this change in wealth, the analysis estimated the average federal individual income tax rate for the 400 wealthiest families was 8.2%, based on the years 2010 and 2018.”

The estimated tax rate for various income brackets can vary widely depending on the methods used to calculate them, but most sources dismiss Biden’s claim that the wealthiest individuals pay an income tax of just 3%.

The Tax Policy Center determined that “the top-earning taxpayers, on average, pay higher tax rates than those in the income groups below them,” noting that the “top 0.1% of earners with more than $4.4 million in expanded cash income, pay an average rate of 25.1% in federal income and payroll taxes.”

That percentage is actually slightly higher than the rate the president said billionaires should pay in his recent tweet. 

“Look, I think you should be able to be a billionaire if you can earn it, but just pay your fair share,” Biden wrote. “I think you ought to pay a minimum tax of 25%. It’s about basic fairness.”