As they have done in the past, President Biden publicly released the income tax returns of himself and his wife Jill on Tax Day. And just like in previous years, the mainstream media did not do a good job of highlighting an important aspect of the Bidens’ finances. theatrical show As they have in previous years, the corporate press once again did a lousy job of pointing out an important theme concerning the Bidens’ finances.
For someone who spends much of his time claiming to support Medicare and Social Security, Joe Biden hasn’t taken any actions to align his own money with his words. And given how often Biden himself uses the phrase “show me your budget—and I’ll tell you what you value,” one would think someone in the corporate media would ask questions about why the Biden family budget doesn’t align with their political values.
Tax Loophole Undermines Medicare
These pages have chronicled how in prior years, Joe Biden and his wife Jill set up S-corporations through which they funneled their earnings from books and speaking engagements. By characterizing those earnings as corporate profits rather than wages, they have avoided more than $523,000 in payroll taxes since 2017 — taxes that fund a combination of Medicare, Obamacare, and Social Security.
In 2023, Biden’s S-corporation, the CelticCapri Corporation, reported no income — maybe because “Bidenflation” has eroded American families’ ability to spend money on relative luxuries like Biden’s book. But Jill Biden’s business, the Giacoppa Corporation, reported $4,115 in income, which the Bidens deducted from their payroll tax obligations. (See the top of page 11 here.)
In 2023, Jill Biden’s teaching salary of $85,985 lay well below last year’s Social Security wage cap of $160,200. That means that had the $4,115 been reported as wages rather than profits from the Giacoppa Corporation, Jill Biden would have had to pay $666.63 more in taxes — $119.33 for Medicare (2.9 percent of $4,115), $510.26 for Social Security (12.4 percent of $4,115), and $37.04 for the Obamacare surtax (0.9 percent of $4,115).
Of course, compared to the roughly $500,000 the Bidens dodged in taxes in 2017 and 2018, these numbers seem like small beer. But it speaks to how the president and his wife have little interest in practicing what they preach when it comes to “tax fairness.”
Why Claim Social Security?
While Joe Biden did not benefit last year from the “S-corporation loophole” his administration now wants to close, another item on his tax returns — one the press also tends to ignore — stands out. In 2023, the Bidens claimed $64,254 in Social Security benefits — $42,842 for Joe Biden and $21,412 for Jill Biden.
On the one hand, it makes sense that our oldest president and his wife would both claim Social Security. One article that dug into Biden’s old tax filings suggests that Biden first started claiming Social Security benefits when he turned 66, his full retirement age.
But while Joe and Jill Biden certainly can claim Social Security legally, should they? If Biden began claiming benefits upon turning 66, in late November 2008, he would have been vice president-elect, with a guaranteed government job for the next four years. Did Biden and his wife need that income, when as vice president, during an interregnum out of office from 2017 through early 2021, or while president currently?
The answer is clear: No. Biden earned millions of dollars after he finished being vice president, ensuring that he would never have to work again. (A sad comment on how being in office allows the ruling class to make money, but I'm getting off track.)
Unlike the Bidens’ tax avoidance methods, which have received attention for their questionable legality, I won’t argue that Joe and Jill Biden have a right to receive their Social Security benefits. But as the saying goes, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. If Biden won’t propose a plan to make Social Security financially stable in the long run — and he hasn’t, because of the size of the tax increases that would involve — then at least he could stop making the situation worse by accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in benefits he doesn’t, and won’t, need to live comfortably in retirement (whenever he finally gets there).
Complicated Tax System
A final item worth noting from the Bidens’ 2023 returns: The first family had to pay $285 in penalties to the Internal Revenue Service for not paying enough taxes during the last calendar year. Apparently, the Bidens didn’t realize they needed to make quarterly estimated payments of their tax liability until it was too late.
In other words: The tax code is so complicated that the president himself can’t avoid incurring penalties. That’s something worth remembering the next time Biden or congressional Democrats call for raising taxes even more.
