Americans are paying a record number in taxes since President Biden entered the White House.
The U.S. Treasury announced Thursday that it collected more than $2.1 trillion in taxes between October 2021 and March of this year. The figure is the first time in history that tax collection has exceeded more than $2 trillion over six months.
Overall, more than $1.1 trillion was collected from individual income taxes, while nearly $697 billion came from social insurance and retirement taxes. For the last quarter of 2021, U.S. GDP grew by nearly 7%, reflecting the recovery from the COVID-19-induced economic shutdown, while the major stock market indexes also posted strong gains during the period.
An additional $127 billion came from taxes or record corporate earnings, while customs duties raised more than $48 billion. Excise taxes levied on manufactured goods at the time of production, brought in more than $38 billion. Furthermore, more than $14 billion of the overall revenue collected was from taxes on estate and gifts.
Thursday’s announcement marks the second time in Mr. Biden’s young presidency that government revenues have set a record high over six months. Last year, the U.S. Treasury set an initial record for collecting nearly $1.85 trillion in taxes.
Neither the White House nor the Treasury Department returned requests for comment.
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Mr. Biden campaigned for the presidency in 2020 on a platform of raising taxes and empowering the Internal Revenue Service to crack down on individuals making more than $400,000 annually.
Recently, the IRS received a funding boost allowing it to hire more than 10,000 new employees to deal with tax collection and a massive filing backlog.
• Haris Alic can be reached at halic@washingtontimes.com.
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