Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will appear before the Senate Finance Committee this morning and highlight the key tax proposals from the administration’s FY2025 budget plan – from a bigger child tax credit to new taxes on the wealthy.
“As a whole, the budget will enable us to continue to grow our economy and support workers and families while upholding our commitment to fiscal responsibility and reducing the deficit,” Yellen will tell senators, according to a copy of her prepared remarks we obtained.
Administration officials typically make the rounds among the committees after the president’s budget release. But today, all the tax talk hits harder given the big 2025 tax cliff next year under the 2017 Trump tax cut law.
Yellen’s main message will be that the president wants to invest in programs like the child tax credit, low-income housing tax credit, earned income tax credit and a subsidy for health insurance premiums that she’ll emphasize can lower costs for families and workers.
On the revenue side, Yellen plans to highlight a “Billionaire Minimum Tax” proposal on the wealthiest households, increasing a levy on stock buybacks and raising estate and gift taxes.
Here are some more key points from Yellen’s planned testimony:
→ There’s a plug for the 15% global minimum tax deal, which the Biden administration negotiated internationally. It stalled in Congress. “President Biden and I continue to urge Congress to act so that the United States plays its part in the global minimum tax deal, which is currently being implemented in jurisdictions around the world to end the race to the bottom in corporate taxation,” Yellen plans to say.
→ Yellen also plans to mention opposition to “misguided proposals that will grow the deficit by offering large tax breaks to the wealthy and big corporations.”
→ Yellen will take time to praise the IRS’ modernization effort, thanks largely to extra funding from Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act. She plans to highlight the agency’s crackdown on corporate jet usage and efforts to go after millionaires’ unpaid taxes. Clearly, the administration is looking at the private plane push as a winning message.
Yellen’s planned testimony kicks off by touting the Biden administration’s “historic economic recovery” while also recognizing there are plenty of families still struggling with high prices. That’s the kind of economic talk we’re hearing a lot from the administration, as it navigates some good economic results along with some lingering gloom.
— Laura Weiss
