National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Chairman Sen. Rick Scott of Florida will release an advertisement Monday night, claiming President Biden has been cheating on his taxes to avoid paying around half a million dollars that should have gone to Medicare.
The ad, titled Tax Cheat, was first obtained by the Daily Caller. In it, Scott accuses Biden of exploiting a loophole to cheat on his taxes and getting away with it. Scott’s ad bases its claim on reports from a number of media outlets, including the New York Post and Wall Street Journal, which said that when Biden was leaving the vice presidency in 2017, Joe and Jill Biden created two S-corporations, the CelticCapri Corporation (Joe Biden) and Giacoppa Corporation (Jill Biden), through which they funneled their book and speech income.
The Bidens paid full income taxes on all their earnings but avoided paying payroll taxes — the 2.9% tax that funds Medicare and the additional 0.9% “high-income” tax imposed by Obamacare — on all income they classified as “profits” from their two corporations. This has caused lawmakers like Scott to raise questions about Biden’s taxes, saying the president could owe the IRS close to $500,000 in back taxes.
In 2020, The Washington Post’s fact checker looked at this allegation in detail and concluded that it was difficult to determine whether Biden’s “tax strategy was especially aggressive or par for the course.”
“Joe Biden just cut $280 billion from Medicare. And we know about his 87,000 new IRS agents. But what you don’t know is that Joe Biden also cheated on his taxes and got away with it,” Scott said in the ad.
“Biden improperly used a loophole to dodge half a million dollars in taxes that should have gone to Medicare. Now that Biden has ripped off Medicare for half a million dollars, he wants to close the loophole and raise your taxes. I’m Rick Scott. Biden should resign,” Scott continued. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Rick Scott, Senate Republicans Introduce Legislation To Prevent Mass Cancellation Of Student Loan Debt)
The ad is being run by and paid for by Scott’s campaign.
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“Joe Biden and Washington Democrats just cut $280 billion from Medicare, taking money from Florida seniors,” Scott told the Caller before the ad was released. “What’s worse, Joe Biden cheated on his own taxes, taking even more money from seniors who rely on Medicare and other important entitlement programs. Joe Biden is a hypocrite and a tax cheat who is unequipped for the job and should resign.” (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: ‘Crazy’ — Sen. Rick Scott To Release Ad Slamming Biden For Canceling College Loan Debt)
White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates respond to the Caller’s inquiry about the accusations Scott made in the ad in a statement: “No. And funnily, Rick Scott’s lie about the Inflation Reduction Act is just as debunked now as it was yesterday when he face-planted after getting fact checked live on CNN yesterday. It’s also just as false as it was when Rick Scott released an ultra MAGA policy agenda that called for putting Medicare on the chopping block. The Inflation Reduction Act is endorsed by the AARP – and opposed by Big Pharma and every Republican in Congress – because it enables Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug costs. Rick Scott just highlighted, again, that want to raise drug prices in the name of welfare for Big Pharma. We should honestly be paying Senator Scott to talk, but then again he probably still has as least a few hundred million dollars left from when he oversaw the biggest Medicare fraud in history.”