President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that former Vice President Joe Biden will raise taxes on most Americans, but the fact is that he’s the one who signed a bill into law back in 2017 that really will hit them with a tax hike.

In late 2017, Republicans jammed a tax law through Congress that gave a gift of trillions of dollars to the wealthy and corporations, which has since caused the deficit to skyrocket.

But it also included a tax hike on everyone else that will start going into effect regardless of who ends up in the White House next year.

According to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz in a revealing New York Times op-ed, this tax hike is going to happen slowly, but Americans will end up paying higher taxes than they were before the law was passed.

“President Trump and his congressional allies hoodwinked us,” Stiglitz wrote. “The law they passed initially lowered taxes for most Americans, but it built-in automatic, stepped tax increases every two years that begin in 2021 and that by 2027 would affect nearly everyone but people at the top of the economic hierarchy. All taxpayer income groups with incomes of $75,000 and under — that’s about 65 percent of taxpayers — will face a higher tax rate in 2027 than in 2019.”

“For most, in fact, it’s a delayed tax increase dressed up as a tax cut,” Stiglitz continued. “How many times have you heard Trump and his allies mention that? They surmised — correctly, so far — that if they waited to add the tax increases until after the 2020 election, few of the people most affected were likely to remember who was responsible.”

“The C.B.O. and Joint Committee estimated that those with an income of $20,000 to $30,000 would owe an extra $365 next year — these are people who are struggling just to pay rent and put food on the table,” Stiglitz went on to explain. “By 2027, when the law’s provisions are set to be fully enacted, with the stealth tax increases complete, the country will be neatly divided into two groups: Those making over $100,000 will on average get a tax cut. Those earning under $100,000 — an income bracket encompassing three-quarters of taxpayers — will not.”

Most of these Americans are already suffering because of the pandemic. Making them pay higher taxes on top of the current hardship would be disastrous, not to mention cruel.

Biden’s plan would only raise taxes on Americans who make $400,000 a year and would undo the provisions in Trump’s tax law that threaten already struggling Americans. In fact, Biden’s plan offers a real tax cut for Americans while restoring tax rates on the wealthiest Americans that pay down the deficit and force them to pay their fair share. His tax plan also would create far more jobs than Trump over the next four years.

Again, Trump has repeatedly claimed that Biden will raise people’s taxes, but he’s the one who has already raised them. Most people just don’t know it yet because the hike doesn’t go into effect until next year, conveniently after the election.

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