Sanders floats top tax rate of over 50 percent

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a Democratic presidential candidate, says he would support raising the tax rate on the wealthiest Americans to over 50 percent.

“We’re working right now on a comprehensive tax package, which I suspect will, for the top marginal rates, go over 50 percent,” Sanders said on PBS’s “Charlie Rose“ program. The current top rate is 39.6 percent.

{mosads}The self-described democratic socialist said he is running on a platform of “redistribution of wealth,” citing “grotesque levels of wealth inequality in this country.”

“It is time to redistribute money back to the working families of this country from the top one-tenth of 1 percent, and tax policy is one of the ways we do that,” Sanders told Bloomberg’s Al Hunt on the show.

Sanders also said he would raise the corporate tax rate, the highest in the developed world, even as the White House and many Republicans push to lower it. Sanders also said he wanted to close loopholes. 

“If you look at the collective percentage of revenue coming in from corporations today, it is significantly lower than it was back in the 1950s,” he said. “I think it’s about 10 percent today.”

The Vermont senator is one of three declared Democratic challengers to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has led by at least 40 percentage points in most recent polls for her party’s presidential nomination.

Sanders pointed to recent polling to suggest his campaign could close the gap with Clinton. A Wisconsin straw poll out this week showed him finishing just 8 percentage points behind Clinton among Democrats in the state.

Sanders said Thursday he has raised more than $6 million since his campaign launched April 30, with donations averaging $40. He said he thinks his campaign can pull in $10 million by the end of the month.