President Joe Biden could owe more than $500,000 in back taxes, according to a new report published by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
In 2019, it was discovered that Biden exploited a tax loophole that allowed him to avoid paying Medicare taxes for years before he took office.
Government documents from 2017 and 2018 show he routed more than $13 million in speaking fees and book sales through S Corporations.
He also counted less than $800,000 of this income as his personal salary, which would have made it eligible for the Medicare tax, according to the Wall Street Journal.
In total, he saved as much as $500,000 in taxes by labeling his speaking fees and book sales as business income rather than self-employed income.
However, a report from the CRS suggests Biden could have to pay those taxes.
Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., chairman of the Republican Study Committee, said it is clear Biden illegally used the S corporation structure to avoid paying the Medicare tax, and cited several examples in which the Internal Revenue Service was able to win judgment against other taxpayers who did the same thing.
“Courts have agreed with the IRS that shareholder-employees are subject to employment taxes when shareholders take distributions, dividends, or other forms of compensation in lieu of reasonable compensation,” the report says.
Banks pointed out that Biden’s recent push to tax wealthy Americans even more is hypocritical since it is clear he exploited the same loopholes he now wants to close.
“Joe Biden wants to raise taxes by $2.1 trillion while claiming the rich need to pay their ‘fair share.’ But in 2017, multimillionaire Joe Biden skirted his payroll taxes — the very taxes that fund Medicare and ObamaCare,” Banks said in a statement. “According to the criteria CRS provided to my office, he owes the IRS and the American people hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes. Every American should know about Joe Biden’s tax hypocrisy.”
Chris Jacobs, a congressional GOP staffer, agreed and said Biden’s push to expand Medicare benefits is also hypocritical considering he worked so hard to avoid paying for it himself.
“Biden doesn’t really believe in expanding programs like Medicare and ObamaCare, because he thought buying a second multimillion-dollar mansion, and renting a third, was more important than helping to fund those laws,” he said.
