The last Democrat to win a U.S. presidential election, Barack Obama, ran in 2012 on a platform of raising taxes for top earners to nearly 40 per cent. Now, a new crop of Democratic presidential hopefuls is signalling that they want to go even further.
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is floating a two per cent tax on all assets of people with a net worth of more than $50 million — a moonshot plan that could face legal challenges for hitting investments, homes and cars, not just income. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is pitching a steeply higher inheritance tax on large estates.


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The rush to tax the rich has prompted criticism from others eyeing the White House — namely billionaires Michael Bloomberg, a former Republican who is considering running as a Democrat, and former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who is mulling an independent run for president.Schultz says he was driven from the Democratic Party by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the rising star who’s issued her own call for a 70 per cent income tax rate on people making more than $10 million. Democratic strategists worry Schultz could peel off a small but vital slice of affluent voters and help U.S. President Donald Trump get re-elected in a three-way race.But to progressive Democratic contenders, the criticism from billionaires like Schultz proves their point.WATCH: ‘We are better than this’ – Kamala Harris formally kicks off 2020 bid
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While many Democrats have previously backed higher taxes for the wealthiest Americans, they’ve rarely made the issue such an early focal point of their campaigns. Obama shied away from tax increases during his first run for office, as did almost every Democratic nominee since Walter Mondale in 1984 pledged to raise voters’ taxes and lost to then-president Ronald Reagan in an historic landslide.But polls now show that voters are happy to see higher-end taxes, to a point. In April 2018, Gallup found that about six in 10 Americans thought the wealthy didn’t pay their fair share of taxes. A Fox News poll last week found seven in 10 Americans supported raising taxes on people making more than $10 million a year and 65 per cent on those making more than $1 million. But support plunges when family income drops, with only 44 per cent backing higher taxes on those making more than $250,000.“What’s happened sometimes in these debates is the ‘on the wealthy’ gets left out in some people’s minds,” said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. “The question is to what extent you can control the interpretation” of tax increases.WATCH: Cory Booker urges end to ‘trash talking, twitter trolling’
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Glickman said that Warren’s tax may be the most politically viable, because it targets such wealthy individuals. But it may be the toughest to implement. Several European countries have recently eliminated wealth taxes because they are so hard to administer, and the value of the mega-rich’s holdings so hard to pin down, Glickman said.Economists advising Warren’s campaign project said it will raise $2.75 trillion over 10 years, but Glickman was skeptical.“When that much money is at stake, rich guys are going to go out and hire really smart tax lawyers,” he said.READ MORE: Senator Cory Booker jumps into 2020 U.S. presidential race
While Warren has enthusiastically embraced her tax plan’s impact on the wealthy, Harris’ early messaging has focused more on boosting middle-income earners with a $500 a month refundable tax credit to households earning less than $100,000 a year.Harris would pay for this partly by eliminating the Trump tax cuts for households earning more than $100,000. That could be politically risky because this group, while comfortable, is largely not the mega-rich.
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