Editor's Note: This story has been updated for accuracy and with additional information from Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler. The headline has also been updated.
Ronna Romney McDaniel, the chairperson of the Republican National Committee, on Sunday faced backlash after suggesting that "82% of Americans" would be impacted by a new Biden tax plan.
In a tweet on Sunday, McDaniel pointed to a video clip from a conservative media group, which asserted that "middle income earners" will see a tax increase under a Joe Biden presidency. However, Biden has said that he will not raise taxes on individuals making less than $400,0000 per year.
"Joe Biden would raise taxes on 82% of Americans, and we cannot afford it!" McDaniel wrote.
Dozens of comments pointed out that most Americans do not make over $400,000 per year. Numerous Twitter responses follow the text of this article.
As respected Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler notes, McDaniel's claim was met with staunch objection from a number of respected Washington DC think tanks who monitor U.S. tax policies and proposals.
"Five respected organizations have calculated the impact of Biden’s tax proposals: the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center (TPC), the Tax Foundation, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Penn Wharton Budget Model," Kessler wrote. "They broadly agree that the Biden plan would raise between $3.5 trillion and $4 trillion over 10 years — and that such a tax increase would moderately reduce the anticipated size of the U.S. economy in the coming decade.
"The tax analyses also broadly agree that virtually all of that revenue would be gathered from the very wealthy or from corporations, with about half of the money coming from the top 0.1 percent and three-quarters from the top 1 percent of households," he added.
Kessler questioned McDaniel's claim, but didn't explicitly posit she was wrong.
However, he wrote, "There is broad agreement among the five tax models that Biden’s tax increase would fall almost entirely on the very wealthy. For technical reasons, the corporate tax increase is deemed to filter through to almost all income groups, giving the Republicans an opening to misleadingly claim that Biden is raising taxes on most Americans. Those numbers may change in Biden’s favor as updated analyses are completed of all of Biden’s tax proposals.
"Overall," he added, "Biden’s $400,000 pledge holds up well, especially when considering the impact on individual taxpayers. In the few instances where we identified a situation in which a taxpayer might inadvertently find themselves snared by a tax change despite not making $400,000, the Biden campaign said it would craft the tax bill to fix the problem."
