Vice President Kamala Harris called for a 28% capital gains tax rate on people earning $1 million or more, touting it as a measure that would ensure the wealthy paid their fair share as she sought to detail her economic agenda and draw a contrast with Republican rival Donald Trump.
"While we ensure that the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share, we will tax capital gains at a rate that rewards investment in America's innovators, founders and small businesses," Harris said Wednesday at an event in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
The Democratic presidential nominee's proposal falls short of the 39.6% rate that President Joe Biden has embraced, marking her efforts to chart an economic vision separate from the sitting president in an election in which voters' skepticism of the administration's handling of the economy threatens to weigh down her ticket. The current capital gains tax rate is 20%.
The Wall Street Journal previously reported Harris' plan to push for a lower capital gains rate than Biden.
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Harris in recent weeks has sought to roll out her agenda, seeking to convince voters to trust her on the economy and to assure them that she will work to curb the high prices that have hit US households hard under the current administration.
Her proposals have included calls for expanded tax credits for parents and $25,000 down-payment assistance for first-time home buyers. Harris plans to pay for those tax cuts by increasing the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%, imposing a minimum income tax on billionaires and quadrupling a levy on stock buybacks, according to a campaign official who spoke on condition of anonymity to detail policy discussions.
Harris has vowed to pay for all of her spending plans with higher taxes on businesses and wealthy households.
Harris on Wednesday detailed plans to expand small business tax relief for entrepreneurs. Her blueprint calls for increasing the small business tax deduction for startup costs tenfold to $50,000 from $5,000. And the vice president is setting a goal of 25 million new small business applications in the first term of a potential Harris administration, a tally that would surpass the record 19 million so far under Biden.
She is also proposing measures to cut red tape for startups, such as developing a standard deduction to save business owners time when filing their taxes and easing barriers to occupational licenses to allow workers and businesses to ply their trades across state lines.
"As president one of my highest priorities will be to strengthen America's small businesses," Harris said.
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Tax policy is taking center stage in the contest between Harris and Trump as the two propose dueling measures aimed at courting key swing state voters and business leaders.
Trump has called for a series of tax cuts on corporations, individuals and retirees. Whoever wins the White House in November will contend with a major tax bill next year with parts of Trump's 2017 tax cuts on households and small businesses set to expire at the end of 2025.
Harris' policy rollout comes a little over a month after she entered the presidential race and with about two months until Election Day. The vice president has seen a surge in momentum in the polls and fundraising but is still seeking to counter Trump on the economy, an issue on which polls show voters trust the former president more.
On the campaign trail, Harris' surrogates have sought to pitch her as a pro-business candidate to donors to assuage concerns over the Biden administration's policies.
"Her vision is pro-capitalism, pro-innovation, pro-growth, you know, lots of employment, lots of housing. It's just forward looking," her husband Doug Emhoff told donors at an event last month.
