According to Tankersley’s framing, the analysis “seeks to show a gap between the tax rate that everyday Americans face and what the richest owe on their vast holdings,” and is “an attempt to bolster Mr. Biden’s claims that billionaires are not paying what they actually should owe in federal taxes, and that the tax code rewards wealth, not work” (emphasis added). In other words, it’s an analysis with a political agenda.
Dubious data point
This is in contrast to “most measures of tax rates,” which “do not use the White House method of counting asset gains as annual income.” The piece emphasizes how “unconventional” the White House analysis is, and that it’s “well below what other analyses have found.” (Note that these analyses don’t “seek to show,” but simply “find,” thus enhancing their social science credibility.)
— source commondreams.org | Julie Hollar | Sep 30, 2021