How Congress Should Investigate Joe Biden’s TaxesIf and when Republicans take control of Congress next year, they should investigate Joe Biden’s questionable tax conduct.BY: CHRISTOPHER JACOBS
MAY 09, 2022
On Tax Day this year, President Biden once again bragged that he released his tax returns—as if that alone proves his integrity. But to paraphrase Winston Churchill, Biden should be more modest about his tax behavior, because he has much to be modest about.
The record not only shows that Biden and his wife used a loophole to avoid payroll tax payments that fund Social Security, Medicare, and Obamacare. It also strongly suggests that Joe Biden abused that loophole, in ways that led to deliberate and significant underpayments of taxes.
Because of those actions, and the evidence supporting this account, I recently filed complaints with the Internal Revenue Service against both Biden and his accountant regarding their actions. If and when Republicans take control of Congress next year, they should follow up by investigating Biden’s questionable conduct.
Rank HypocrisyUpon leaving the vice presidency in 2017, Biden and his wife Jill funneled their book and speech income through two S-corporations. By characterizing more than $13 million of that income as corporate profits rather than wages, the Bidens avoided paying more than $500,000 in payroll taxes.
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Legal ViolationsBut Biden paid himself such a low salary that multiple tax experts believe he violated federal tax guidelines. For starters, in 2017 Biden paid himself a 37 percent lower salary—just under $150,000—than the $230,700 he received as vice president. To ask the obvious question: What Washington dignitary earns less after leaving office than he earned while serving in the federal government?
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Congress Should ActIf they retake control of Congress in November, Republicans should use the precedents set in the dispute over President Trump’s tax returns to subpoena Deyhle’s files, to uncover the facts about Biden’s taxes. Did Deyhle tell Biden his actions likely violated IRS guidelines, and if so, why did Deyhle sign Biden’s return?
Congress should also investigate why the IRS has had Trump’s returns under audit for more than a decade, while declining to audit Biden’s returns from the years before he became president, notwithstanding the public criticism Biden’s returns have received. The disparate treatment of two politicians regarding questions about their taxes leads to the additional question of whether IRS bureaucrats allowed ideology to influence their conduct, in a potential reprise of the Lois Lerner scandal.
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Source:
https://thefederalist.com/2022/05/09/how-congress-should-investigate-joe-bidens-taxes/
