{"id":1468506,"date":"2022-05-09T08:00:51","date_gmt":"2022-05-09T12:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1468506"},"modified":"2022-05-09T08:01:04","modified_gmt":"2022-05-09T12:01:04","slug":"how-congress-should-investigate-joe-bidens-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/how-congress-should-investigate-joe-bidens-taxes\/","title":{"rendered":"How Congress Should Investigate Joe Biden\u2019s Taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhow-congress-should-investigate-joe-bidens-taxes%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1468506&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/52036180684_3f7e4ed96a_o.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>On Tax Day this year, President Biden once again bragged that he released his tax returns\u2014as 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.<\/p>\n<p>The record not only shows that Biden and his wife used a <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/04\/18\/tax-records-show-that-in-2021-joe-biden-didnt-pay-his-fair-share-in-taxes-again\/\">loophole to avoid payroll tax payments<\/a> that fund Social Security, Medicare, and Obamacare. It also strongly suggests that Joe Biden <em>abused<\/em> that loophole, in ways that led to deliberate and significant underpayments of taxes.<\/p>\n<p>Because of those actions, and the evidence supporting this account, I recently filed complaints with the Internal Revenue Service against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/document\/571531122\/Whistleblower-Complaint\">both Biden<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/document\/571531121\/Complaint-Re-Biden-Accountant-April-2022\">his accountant<\/a> regarding their actions. If and when Republicans take control of Congress next year, they should follow up by investigating Biden\u2019s questionable conduct.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Rank Hypocrisy<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Upon leaving the vice presidency in 2017, Biden and his wife Jill <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/joe-biden-used-tax-code-loophole-obama-tried-to-plug-11562779300?mod=article_inline\">funneled their book and speech income<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n<p>Ironically enough, the Biden administration has proposed closing this very loophole, with the Treasury <a href=\"https:\/\/home.treasury.gov\/system\/files\/131\/General-Explanations-FY2022.pdf\">claiming<\/a> it allows individuals with \u201chigh incomes to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.\u201d Democrats in Congress have similarly proposed closing the \u201cBiden loophole\u201d in their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbo.gov\/system\/files\/2021-12\/57673-BBBA-GrahamSmith-Letter.pdf\">$5 trillion<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/12\/13\/republicans-should-force-democrats-to-vote-on-the-full-5-trillion-build-back-bankrupt\/\">Build Back Bankrupt<\/a> legislation. While Biden previously exploiting a loophole he now wants to close makes him a hypocrite, it doesn\u2019t automatically make him a tax cheat.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Legal Violations<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>But Biden paid himself such a low salary that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/joe-biden-used-tax-code-loophole-obama-tried-to-plug-11562779300?mod=article_inline\">multiple<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2021\/09\/23\/biden-could-owe-as-much-as-500k-in-irs-taxes-report\/\">tax experts<\/a> believe he violated federal tax guidelines. For starters, in 2017 Biden <a href=\"https:\/\/s.wsj.net\/public\/resources\/documents\/Biden2017AmendedFederalTaxReturn.pdf\">paid himself<\/a> a 37 percent lower salary\u2014just under $150,000\u2014than the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.govexec.com\/pay-benefits\/2015\/12\/2016-federal-pay-tables-are-out\/124714\/\">$230,700 he received<\/a> 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?<\/p>\n<p>In this case, the answer is equally obvious: The lower the salary Biden paid himself, the more money he could classify as corporate profits\u2014and the more in payroll taxes he could avoid. Little wonder then that, on an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/data\/inflation_calculator.htm\">inflation-adjusted basis<\/a>, Biden in 2017 paid himself less than the annual salary he received in <a href=\"https:\/\/crsreports.congress.gov\/product\/pdf\/RS\/97-1011\">each of 46 of his years of service<\/a> as a senator and vice president.<\/p>\n<p>Biden underpaid himself relative to his peers, too. Data from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/pub\/irs-soi\/17co32ccr.xlsx\">IRS\u2019 Statistics of Income<\/a> show that in 2017, firms with the same amount of revenue as Biden\u2019s corporation\u2014companies with between $5 million and $10 million in revenue\u2014paid their executives salaries averaging 33.6 percent of net income. By comparison, Biden paid himself a salary of only 1.51 percent of his company\u2019s net income in 2017, and 9.9 percent of his company\u2019s net income in 2018, indicating he was deliberately underpaying his salary to avoid payroll taxes.<\/p>\n<p>Consider too that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, after leaving office as Federal Reserve Chair, received an average of $126,509 for making <a href=\"https:\/\/extapps2.oge.gov\/201\/Presiden.nsf\/PAS+Index\/C22B882BBDC40AC78525864F008106AB\/$FILE\/Yellen,%20Janet%20L.%20AMENDEDfinal%20278.pdf\">57 separate speeches<\/a> in 2019 and 2020. Unlike Biden appears to have done, Yellen <a href=\"https:\/\/extapps2.oge.gov\/201\/Presiden.nsf\/PAS+Index\/C22B882BBDC40AC78525864F008106AB\/$FILE\/Yellen,%20Janet%20L.%20AMENDEDfinal%20278.pdf\">did not<\/a> attempt to dodge payroll taxes by funneling her speech revenue through an S-corporation.<\/p>\n<p>Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton charged an even higher amount, setting <a href=\"https:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2016\/04\/20\/news\/economy\/hillary-clinton-goldman-sachs\/\">$225,000 as her standard<\/a> per-speech fee. Yet even as he feverishly worked the lecture circuit himself after leaving the vice presidency, Biden paid himself in salary for an entire year less than what Clinton charged for a single speech\u2014all apparently so he could lower his payroll tax bill.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Complaints Pending with IRS<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Tax experts have <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2021\/09\/23\/biden-could-owe-as-much-as-500k-in-irs-taxes-report\/\">publicly criticized<\/a> Biden\u2019s tactics, saying he underpaid his salary by millions of dollars\u2014improperly avoiding thousands and thousands of dollars of payroll taxes on that income. After reading their opinions, and conducting my own analysis, I submitted a complaint to the IRS several months ago, asking the IRS to investigate Biden\u2019s returns and recoup his underpayment.<\/p>\n<p>I also recently filed a complaint against Biden\u2019s accountant, Walter Deyhle. Under <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/pub\/irs-pdf\/pcir230.pdf\">the IRS standards for accountants<\/a>, Deyhle had an obligation to undertake the type of analysis I outlined above, which would have shown Biden needed to pay himself a far higher salary. Either Deyhle did not do this analysis, making him negligent, or Biden ignored his accountant\u2019s advice and underpaid himself, and Deyhle improperly signed Biden\u2019s tax return anyway.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Congress Should Act<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>If they retake control of Congress in November, Republicans should use the precedents set in the dispute over President Trump\u2019s tax returns to subpoena Deyhle\u2019s files, to uncover the facts about Biden\u2019s taxes. Did Deyhle tell Biden his actions likely violated IRS guidelines, and if so, why did Deyhle sign Biden\u2019s return?<\/p>\n<p>Congress should also investigate why the IRS has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2020\/09\/27\/us\/donald-trump-taxes.html\">had Trump\u2019s returns under audit<\/a> for more than a decade, while <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2021\/11\/30\/joe-bidens-aggressive-use-tax-loophole-hes-trying-shut-down\/\">declining to audit Biden\u2019s returns<\/a> from the years before he became president, notwithstanding the public criticism Biden\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>Ironically enough, for all the effort Democrats have made to subpoena Trump\u2019s taxes, their purported reasons for demanding his returns seem much less compelling than the IRS treating politicians of two different parties differently with respect to audit decisions. (While being in a hurry to subpoena Trump\u2019s taxes, they have <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2019\/08\/12\/house-democrats-refuse-request-irs-audit-bidens-questionable-tax-returns\/\">shown no desire to investigate<\/a> Biden\u2019s questionable tax returns.) And if an investigation revealed that political motivations played a role in the decision to decline an audit of Biden\u2019s taxes, that would obviously necessitate further action by Congress, to (again) rein in an administrative state run amok.<\/p>\n<p>The American people deserve a tax system that treats everyone equally under the law. When one expert <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2021\/09\/23\/biden-could-owe-as-much-as-500k-in-irs-taxes-report\/\">says<\/a> that \u201cwhether the IRS would be willing to\u201d require Biden to pay back taxes is \u201cquestionable\u201d given his role as chief executive, it undermines the effectiveness of the tax code for all Americans. To lead by his own example, Biden should pay back the taxes he owes\u2014and if he doesn\u2019t, Congress should investigate why the IRS has not held him to account.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  Chris Jacobs is founder and CEO of Juniper Research Group, and author of the book, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1645720020\">The Case Against Single Payer<\/a>.&#8221; He is on Twitter: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/chrisjacobshc\">@chrisjacobsHC<\/a>. Previously he was a senior health policy analyst for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a senior policy analyst in The Heritage Foundation\u2019s Center for Health Policy Studies, and a senior policy analyst with the Joint Economic Committee\u2019s Senate Republican staff. During the debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, Jacobs was a policy adviser for the House Republican Conference under then-Chairman Mike Pence. In the first two years of the law\u2019s implementation, he was a health policy analyst for the Senate Republican Policy Committee. Jacobs got his start on Capitol Hill as an intern for then-Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). He holds a bachelor\u2019s degree in political science and history from American University, where he is a part-time teacher of health policy. He currently resides in Washington, D.C.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Tax Day this year, President Biden once again bragged that he released his tax returns\u2014as if that alone proves his integrity. But to paraphrase Winston Churchill, Biden should be<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":521,"featured_media":1894252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1468506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1468506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1468506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1468506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1894252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1468506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1468506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1468506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}