FACT CHECK: Viral Post Claims The ‘Infrastructure Bill On Page 2385’ Contains A 3% Federal Property Tax

An image shared on Facebook over 1,000 times claims the “‘infrastructure bill’ on page 2385” contains a 3 percent federal property tax.

Verdict: False

There is no mention of a 3 percent federal property tax in either the bipartisan infrastructure bill or the budget reconciliation package. Experts confirmed such a proposal is not present in either, as well.

Fact Check: 

President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress are currently working to pass the Build Back Better Act, a $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, according to CNBC.

“This ‘infrastructure bill’ on page 2385 presents a federal property tax of 3% on all homes and land – both residential and commercial,” one Facebook post recently claimed. “This means the average American with a 400k home will pay 12k per year on this tax – into infinity – forever. Unbelievable!”

However, neither the Build Back Better Act nor the bipartisan infrastructure bill mention a 3 percent federal property tax on page 2,385, a review by Check Your Fact found. That page in the Build Back Better Act talks about drug prices, while the page in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act discusses ferry services.

Media outlets have covered both pieces of legislation extensively. There are no credible reports of either bill proposing a 3 percent federal property tax.

Jim Parrott, a non-resident fellow at the Urban Institute, confirmed to Check Your Fact in an email that neither bill contained a federal property tax, saying, “Whoever is making this claim is either confusing what’s in the package or simply making it up, as there is no such property tax.”

Garrett Watson, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, also told Check Your Fact in an email that the claim was “not true,” noting, “Specifically, page 2385 of the Build Back Better Act relates to drug pricing proposals, not a 3% federal property tax.”

A 3 percent federal property tax is “probably not even constitutional,” Marc Goldwein, the senior vice president and senior policy director for the government spending watchdog group Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told Check Your Fact in a phone interview. He confirmed “there is certainly not a property tax in the infrastructure bill.”

Parrot and Watson similarly expressed skepticism that a 3 percent federal property tax would be constitutional. (RELATED: Would Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Agenda ‘Cost Zero Dollars’?)

“There is also good reason why a federal property tax does not exist and has not been proposed,” Watson, for instance, explained in an email. “That would be a ‘direct’ tax subject to apportionment among the states, which would be very difficult to pull off absent a constitutional amendment (like the amendment we have for federal income taxes).”

Check Your Fact previously debunked a claim that Biden proposed a federal property tax when he was running for president.

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