As they have in previous years, President Biden made a theatrical show of releasing the income tax returns of him and his wife Jill on Tax Day. And as in previous years, the corporate press once again did a lousy job of pointing out an important theme concerning the Bidens\u2019 finances.<\/p>\n
For someone who spends much of his time purporting to defend Medicare and Social Security, Joe Biden hasn\u2019t made any steps to put his own money where his mouth is. And given all the times Biden himself uses the phrase \u201cshow me your budget\u2014and I\u2019ll tell you what you value,\u201d one would think someone in the corporate media would ask questions about why the Biden family budget doesn\u2019t align with their political values.<\/p>\n
These pages have chronicled how in prior years, Joe Biden and his wife Jill set up S-corporations through which they funneled their earnings from books and speaking engagements. By characterizing those earnings as corporate profits rather than wages, they have avoided more than $523,000 in payroll taxes since 2017 \u2014 taxes that fund a combination of Medicare, Obamacare, and Social Security.<\/p>\n
In 2023, Biden\u2019s S-corporation, the CelticCapri Corporation, reported no income \u2014 perhaps because \u201cBidenflation\u201d has eroded American families\u2019 ability to spend money on relative luxuries like Biden\u2019s book. But Jill Biden\u2019s business, the Giacoppa Corporation, reported $4,115 in income, which the Bidens subtracted from their payroll tax obligations. (See the top of page 11 here.)<\/p>\n
In 2023, Jill Biden\u2019s teaching salary of $85,985 lay well below last year\u2019s Social Security wage cap of $160,200. That means that had the $4,115 been reported as wages rather than profits from the Giacoppa Corporation, Jill Biden would have had to pay $666.63 more in taxes \u2014 $119.33 for Medicare (2.9 percent of $4,115), $510.26 for Social Security (12.4 percent of $4,115), and $37.04 for the Obamacare surtax (0.9 percent of $4,115).<\/p>\n
Of course, compared to the roughly $500,000 the Bidens dodged in taxes in 2017 and 2018, these numbers seem like small beer. But it speaks to how the president and his wife have little interest in practicing what they preach when it comes to \u201ctax fairness.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Joe Biden did not benefit last year from the \u201cS-corporation loophole\u201d his administration now wants to close, another item on his tax returns \u2014 one the press also tends to ignore \u2014 stands out. In 2023, the Bidens claimed $64,254 in Social Security benefits \u2014 $42,842 for Joe Biden and $21,412 for Jill Biden.<\/p>\n
On the one hand, it makes sense that our oldest president and his wife would both claim Social Security. One article that dug into Biden\u2019s old tax filings suggests that Biden first started claiming Social Security benefits when he turned 66, his full retirement age.<\/p>\n
But while Joe and Jill Biden certainly can<\/em> claim Social Security legally, should<\/em> they? If Biden began claiming benefits upon turning 66, in late November 2008, he would have been vice president-elect, with a guaranteed government job for the next four years. Did Biden and his wife need that income, when as vice president, during an interregnum out of office from 2017 through early 2021, or while president currently?<\/p>\n The answer is obvious: No. Biden made millions after he left the vice presidency, such that he would never need to work again. (A sad commentary on how holding office allows the ruling class to enrich itself, but I digress.)<\/p>\n Unlike the Bidens\u2019 tax-dodging practices, which have drawn scrutiny for their questionable legality, I won\u2019t dispute that Joe and Jill Biden have a right to claim their Social Security benefits. But as the saying goes, if you\u2019re not part of the solution, you\u2019re part of the problem. If Biden won\u2019t put forward a plan to make Social Security solvent over the long term \u2014 and he hasn\u2019t, because of the magnitude of the tax increases that would entail \u2014 then at least he could stop making the situation worse by accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in benefits he doesn\u2019t, and won\u2019t, need to live comfortably in retirement (whenever he finally gets there).<\/p>\n A final item of note from the Bidens\u2019 2023 returns: The first family had to pay $285 in penalties to the Internal Revenue Service for underpaying their taxes during the last calendar year. Apparently, the Bidens didn\u2019t discover they needed to make quarterly estimated payments of their tax liability until it was too late.<\/p>\n To put it another way: The tax code is so complex that the president himself can\u2019t avoid incurring penalties. That\u2019s something worth bearing in mind the next time Biden or congressional Democrats call for raising taxes still further.<\/p>\n Chris Jacobs is founder and CEO of Juniper Research Group, and author of the book “The Case Against Single Payer.” He is on Twitter: @chrisjacobsHC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President Biden and his wife Jill released their income tax returns on Tax Day, revealing that they avoided over 3,000 in payroll taxes since 2017 by characterizing their earnings as corporate profits rather than wages. They also claimed ,254 in Social Security benefits in 2023, despite not needing the income due to their wealth. Additionally, the Bidens had to pay 5 in penalties to the IRS for underpaying their taxes due to the complexity of the tax code.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8887,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1521,862,5936,789,6497,492,1766,186,5320,4736,5099,4117,7017,641,1873,5596,2459,415,2294,3398,4310,899,5236,756,6693,2952,7154,5050,2788,2628,1012,4593,2946,1021,4843,3360,5051,6074,737,6701,5612,827,4441,6386,7155,1065,6544,5488,3359,7153,6006,5799,5681,1183,5044,618,169,4870,6305],"class_list":["post-8886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other","tag-1521","tag-age","tag-article","tag-beer","tag-benefit","tag-biden","tag-budget","tag-business","tag-congressional-democrats","tag-corporate-profits","tag-corporations","tag-democrats","tag-dispute","tag-earnings","tag-fairness","tag-families","tag-family","tag-government","tag-income","tag-income-tax","tag-income-tax-returns","tag-interest","tag-irs","tag-joe-biden","tag-legality","tag-media","tag-medicare","tag-medicare-and-social-security","tag-mind","tag-money","tag-numbers","tag-office","tag-penalties","tag-presidency","tag-president","tag-president-biden","tag-raising-taxes","tag-research","tag-retirement","tag-retirement-age","tag-revenue","tag-security","tag-service","tag-situation","tag-social-security","tag-tax","tag-tax-day","tag-tax-fairness","tag-tax-increases","tag-tax-loophole","tag-tax-obligations","tag-tax-returns","tag-tax-system","tag-taxes","tag-teaching","tag-top","tag-twitter","tag-wages","tag-who"],"acf":{"keyphrase":"","keywords":"","sourceimg":"","country-category":""},"yoast_head":"\nComplex Tax System<\/h2>\n
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