How have Biden's tax proposals differed from Trump's 2017 cuts?

1. What the 2017 Trump cuts actually did

The TCJA enacted under President Trump cut the corporate rate from 35% to 21% and reduced individual rates and many deductions, producing one of the larger post‑war tax cuts—estimated by the Tax Foundation to lower annual revenues by about 0.69 percent of GDP and ranking the TCJA among the top ten largest tax cuts since 1940—changes critics say disproportionately favored the top earners ^{[1] [4] [2]}.

2. Biden’s core counter‑proposal: raise rates on corporations and the wealthy

Biden’s public plan calls for reversing parts of the TCJA for high‑income households and corporations—proposing to raise the corporate tax rate (commonly discussed to about 28%) and to increase the top individual rate from 37% back toward pre‑TCJA levels—moves aimed at generating revenue and shifting more burden to the top 1 percent ^{[5] [1] [6] [7]}.

3. Capital gains, payroll taxes, and who pays more under Biden

A distinguishing feature of Biden’s proposals is tighter taxation of investment income: he has proposed treating capital gains more like ordinary income for very high earners and adding payroll‑tax exposure for earnings above roughly $400,000—measures that Tax Policy Center and other analysts project would concentrate most of the increased burden on the richest households ^{[8] [7] [6]}.

4. Trump’s approach: extend TCJA and lean on tariffs and other offsets

Trump’s stated agenda is to make large parts of the 2017 law permanent, further reduce tax burdens on investors (including proposals to lower capital‑gains rates), and pair tax policy with tariffs and other trade measures that his team says would finance or complement tax changes—an approach that analysts warn could raise costs for middle‑class consumers even as it preserves large tax gains for the wealthy ^{[3] [8] [9]}.

5. Distributional stakes and competing narratives

Policy analyses diverge sharply on who benefits: Democratic and progressive groups emphasize that TCJA was skewed to the rich and that Biden’s reversals would restore progressivity (highlighting large average cuts at the top) while conservative and pro‑tax‑cut voices stress growth and middle‑class benefits from lower rates; independent centers note that Biden’s plans are targeted to those above $400,000 and that both campaigns claim to favor middle‑income relief in different forms and timing ^{[2] [10] [3]}.

6. Budget math, timing, and political reality

Beyond headline rates, the difference turns on timing and expiration: many individual TCJA cuts are temporary and set to expire in 2025, meaning the next administration and Congress must choose whether to extend, modify, or let them lapse—analysts estimate Biden’s package could raise trillions relative to keeping TCJA permanent, while making TCJA permanent would leave large revenue shortfalls and distributional effects critics call regressive ^{[4] [7] [11]}.

7. Hidden agendas, tradeoffs, and the political frame

Both parties use framing to press voters: advocates for Trump emphasize growth and business incentives, sometimes downplaying distributional data, while Biden’s camp emphasizes funding for social investments and fiscal fairness, which requires taxing high earners and corporations; third‑party analyses caution that both promises involve tradeoffs—tariffs can act like regressive taxes and corporate rate hikes can affect investment—so the ultimate economic and distributional outcomes depend on details and congressional compromises that remain unsettled ^{[9] [2] [10]}.