Taxes and the Inflation Reduction Act Toolkit
One year ago, President Biden signed Democrats' Inflation Reduction Act into law. The landmark legislation lowers drug costs, fights the climate crisis, and lowers the deficit—and it's paid for by making the wealthy and big corporations pay more of their fair share in taxes.
The Inflation Reduction Act is a perfect case study for what we can do when we tax the rich and corporations to invest in programs for working people. But even though the tax provisions are some of the most popular in the bill, many voters still haven't heard much about them.
Meanwhile, Republicans have wasted no time attacking the Inflation Reduction Act's progress—especially the restored funding for the IRS. And while Big Pharma is suing to stop Medicare from negotiating lower drug prices, tax filing corporations are lobbying to stop the IRS from creating its free-filing system.
Please join Americans for Tax Fairness and allies in celebrating and defending the Inflation Reduction Act on its one-year anniversary by including the below messaging and content about its tax provisions in your posts and statements.
How can I talk about taxes in the Inflation Reduction Act?
For the last forty years, our economy has struggled under the weight of trickle-down economics.
Decades of tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations have failed to trickle down to working people, and unpaid-for Republican tax handouts to the wealthy and corporations blew up the deficit.
The Inflation Reduction Act represents a deliberate departure from trickle-down economics.
President Biden and Democrats have chosen to grow the economy by growing the middle class, from the bottom up and middle out.
This means investing in working people by creating jobs, lowering costs, and fighting the climate crisis—and asking the wealthy and corporations to pay more of their fair share in taxes to fund these investments.
We know that when the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share, we can raise the revenue we need to build an economy that works for everyone.
The Inflation Reduction Act makes our economy fairer by giving the IRS the resources it needs to crack down on wealthy tax cheats, making billion-dollar corporations pay a minimum 15% tax on their profits, and assessing a 1% tax on runaway corporate stock buybacks.
The Inflation Reduction Act uses the revenue from taxes on the wealthy and corporations to invest in working people.
It lowers the cost of prescription drugs by allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, fights the climate crisis with the biggest investment in green energy in history, creates millions of good-paying jobs, lowers the deficit, and fights inflation.
Republicans are fighting hard to dismantle the Inflation Reduction Act in order to protect wealthy tax cheats and give the rich and corporations more tax cuts.
If you post one thing about taxes:
The Inflation Reduction Act is proof that we can do big things when we make the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share in taxes.
The Inflation Reduction Act [pick one:] [creates good-paying jobs] [fights the climate crisis] [invests in green energy] [lowers costs for working families] [lowers the deficit], and it's all paid for by making the wealthy and corporations pay more of their fair share in taxes!
General Tax Talking Points
The Inflation Reduction Act proved that we can lower drug costs, fight the climate crisis, and lower the deficit, all by making big corporations pay more of their fair share in taxes.
Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, 13 million people will save $800 a year on insurance premiums, 3.3 million Medicare beneficiaries will have insulin costs capped at $35/month, and billionaire corporations will pay more of their fair share in taxes.
Don’t let anyone tell you we “can’t afford” to fight the climate crisis. The Inflation Reduction Act made the largest clean energy investments in history, paid for by making wealthy tax cheats and billion-dollar corporations pay more of their fair share in taxes.
Unlike the Trump-GOP tax scam, the Inflation Reduction Act was FULLY PAID FOR by cracking down on wealthy and corporate tax cheats and by making billion-dollar corporations pay a fairer share of taxes AND it lowered the deficit.
Every single Republican voted against lowering prescription drug and health care costs and making billionaire corporations pay more of their fair share in taxes in the Inflation Reduction Act.
IRS Funding Talking Points
The Inflation Reduction Act provides $80 billion in restored IRS funding after decades of Republican budget cuts. The funding will help the IRS crack down on wealthy and corporate tax cheats, answer phones, process returns, and create an easy, online free-file service.
The funding will help the IRS catch the wealthy and corporate tax cheats who evade around $160 billion each year.
The richest 1% alone owes about 36% of total unpaid taxes. Of the roughly $600 billion in tax evasion 64% is done by the top 10% of earners.
Every dollar spent on the IRS produces a 7-to-1 return on investment. The Inflation Reduction Act's IRS funding is projected to raise $180 billion in revenue over the next decade.
Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, the IRS has already collected $38 MILLION from 175+ rich tax cheats and answered 2.4 MILLION more taxpayer calls than in previous years.
Additionally, the IRS will begin to provide taxpayers with the option to file taxes for free through the IRS's website in 2024, instead of spending hundreds through TurboTax or H&R Block.
Republicans are fighting tooth and nail to claw back the funding. Their first vote after taking control of the House was to repeal the funding, and they're preparing to hold government funding hostage yet again to cut $67 billion of the funding in the appropriations process.
Corporate Minimum Tax Talking Points
The Inflation Reduction Act set a 15% corporate profits minimum tax—that means that corporations making over $1 billion will be required to pay at least 15% on those profits.
By assessing a 15% corporate profits minimum tax, the Inflation Reduction Act is cracking down on corporate greed.
In 2020, 55 Fortune 500 corporations paid $0 in federal income taxes on $40 billion in profits. The Inflation Reduction Act is making sure billion-dollar corporations no longer get away with paying $0 in taxes.
Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, nurses, firefighters, and teachers will no longer pay a higher tax rate than giant corporations raking in $1 billion+ in profit each year.
Corporations that have been price-gouging their way to BILLIONS in profits while paying LOWER tax rates than many workers are starting to pay more of their fair share under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Stock Buybacks Tax Talking Points
The Inflation Reduction Act set a 1% tax on corporate stock buybacks.
In the first year after the Republican’s 2017 tax scam bill, corporations repurchased a record $1 trillion in their own stocks.
2022 was a record year for stock buybacks, topping $1.2 trillion.
Giant corporations buy back their own stock in order to raise share prices and make their wealthy shareholders and CEOs even richer.
The wealthiest 10% of American households own nearly 90% of all corporate stock. The top 1% owns over half. About 40% of Americans own none. Taxing stock buybacks will raise revenue from the wealthiest Americans so we can make investments in the rest of us.
Stock buybacks waste money that could be used to hire more workers, boost wages and benefits, and invest in the business and surrounding communities.
If corporations can afford stock buybacks, they can afford to pay a 1% tax rate on those purchases.
The top 10 largest Pharma corporations have spent 7x more on stock buybacks and dividend payouts than they paid in federal taxes over the past 5 years.
