Briahna Joy Gray, former press secretary for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) 2020 presidential campaign, said Wednesday that instead of raising corporate taxes, the Biden administration should focus more on having the “proper enforcement mechanisms in place” to make sure high-income groups don’t avoid paying what they owe.
In an interview on Hill.TV’s “Rising,” Gray commented on IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig’s warning to lawmakers Tuesday that the annual “tax gap” between the amount owed and the amount paid on time could hit $1 trillion a year.
“In contrast to the narrative that’s spun by corporate Democrats and Republicans alike, it turns out the rich are not paying their fair share in taxes,” said Gray, who also co-hosts the “Bad Faith” podcast.
“In fact, what some have argued is that this tax gap… could be used to pay for a substantial amount of the spending that Joe Biden has planned over the next few years,” she added.
Gray said that while the White House is pushing for an increased corporate tax rate, the conversation on taxes should focus more “on the fact that even under the current tax regime, you could get trillions more in revenue if you actually just had the proper enforcement mechanisms in place.”
“There’s a lot of conversation when this comes up about how difficult it is to enforce the tax code and how it’s just really hard and we just can’t do it,” she said. “But when you look more closely, what you realize is that the IRS has been dramatically under-supported, underfunded and under-resourced in going up against… the richest people on the planet.”
Watch part of Gray’s interview above.
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