House Proposal Will Hike Taxes on Lower- and Middle-Income Americans: Bipartisan Congressional Panel

Mark TapscottJuly 12, 2022

Taxes will go up for millions of lower- and middle-income taxpayers under the House Democrats’ version of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan, according to two new analyses by the non-partisan professional staff of the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT).

“While Republican tax reform in 2017 cut taxes for all Americans, and increased the progressivity of the tax code, the Democrats’ approach to tax reform does not cut taxes for anyone, but it would raise taxes on millions of lower- and middle-income Americans at a time when they can least afford it,” U.S. Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) said in a statement issued late Monday.

“The economy is already reeling from Democrats’ bad policies and people are struggling to make ends meet. The last thing they need are higher taxes, especially in light of rising odds of a recession and stagflation,” the Idaho Republican continued.

Crapo was referring to the June 23 (pdf) and June 27 (pdf) analyses by the 10-member panel, which made the studies available to Members of Congress and their staff, but did not publicly issue news releases describing the results. Both analyses focused on H.R. 5376, as amended.

The JCT includes five members from the Senate and five from the House of Representatives. Six of the 10 are presently Democrats, with the other four being Republicans.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) is the JCT chairman in 2022, while Crapo is the top Republican. Wyden and Crapo are also chairman and ranking member, respectively, on the Senate Finance Committee.

Last year, Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) was chairman and Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) was vice-chairman. The Senate and House members exchange the leadership positions from one session of Congress to the next.

The JCT’s 65-member staff is entirely non-partisan, and includes 25 economists.

According to the findings of