Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has pulled Hillary Clinton to the left once again, this time on the issue of estate taxes.
The Democratic presidential candidate is now calling for a 65 percent tax on the estates of billionaires, the same rate that Sanders, a democratic socialist, proposed in June, near the end of his campaign against Clinton.
Clinton’s new proposed rate marks a massive increase over the 45 percent tax she proposed earlier in the campaign.
“And she will go further than that for estates valued in the tens and hundreds of millions, with higher rates as values rise, up to a 65% rate on estates valued at over $1 billion per couple,” Clinton’s campaign site states.
NPR reported earlier this month that Clinton’s plan would increase the top tax rate from the current 40 percent to 45 percent. She would also lower the threshold for the tax from $5.45 million per individual to $3.5 million.
In June, Sanders proposed a graduated estate tax. Estates with assets between $3.5 million and $10 million would be taxed at 45 percent, according to that plan. That would increase to 50 percent for estates valued up to $50 million and 55 percent for those valued up to a billion dollars. A 10 percent surtax would be applied to estates valued in the billions.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Clinton’s plan institutes the same graduated scale proposed by Sanders.
Overall, Clinton hopes that the new top rate will generate $260 billion in new revenue over the next decade.
Clinton has shifted to the left on other issues, largely due to the pull from Sanders and other progressives in the Democratic party. She reversed her position on the Trans Pacific Partnership because Sanders and others were so heavily criticial of the trade deal.
In contrast to Clinton, billionaire Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump would eliminate the estate tax completely.