Congressional Republicans are criticizing President Joe Biden for exploiting a tax loophole in order to avoid paying thousands of dollars in payroll taxes.
Biden used two S-corporations to avoid paying $500,000 in payroll taxes, members of the Republican Study Committee allege in a letter obtained by the Daily Caller. Those payroll taxes fund Medicare and were raised by provisions in the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).
Tax returns from 2017, 2018, and 2019 show that Biden used “two S-corporations, the CelticCapri Corporation, and the Giacoppa Corporation” to “shelter over $13 million of income … from book royalties and speaking appearance fees,” the Republicans write, on the eleventh anniversary of former President Barack Obama’s signing his namesake legislation into law.
“There’s no reason for these to be in an S corp—none, other than to save on self-employment tax,” an accountant who reviewed Biden’s tax returns in 2019 told the Wall Street Journal.
S-Corporations allow individuals who benefit from them to avoid the self-employment tax, since S Corporations are taxed by the federal government through what is known as “pass-through taxation,” according to ExpertLaw.
Photo courtesy of Jim Banks.
“Here’s one of the advantages of overseeing a 2,700 page bill that no one had time to read: While millions of Americans faced higher taxes and increased premiums for lower quality health care due to Obamacare, Biden was able to evade $500K in taxes!” Chairman of the Republican Study Committee and Indiana Rep. Jim Banks told the Daily Caller.
The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service noted that the Medicare Trustees Report expects that the Medicare Hospital Insurance “trust fund will become insolvent in 2026, the same year as estimated in the prior two years’ reports.” (RELATED: White House Budget Director Doubles Down: Trump’s 2021 Budget Won’t Cut ‘Social Security And Medicare’)
Biden repeatedly defended Obamacare during his 2020 presidential campaign from both left and right-wing criticism. During the Democratic primaries, he promised to reinstate Obamacare’s individual mandate, which Republicans effectively repealed eliminating the penalty for not enrolling in health insurance. However, he criticized the Medicare for All proposal, because “it means getting rid of Obamacare” and said he wasn’t for that.
READ THE LETTER HERE: