Did Biden raise taxes? Yes, but only on large corporations. During his four years in office, President Biden signed two tax increases into law through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022: a 15% corporate alternative minimum tax on companies with more than $1 billion in annual profits, and a 1% excise tax on corporate stock buybacks. No tax increase on individual income, capital gains, or estates reached his desk, and the corporate income tax rate itself never changed.
The Two Tax Increases Biden Signed
Both increases took effect for tax years beginning after December 31, 2022, and both remain in force for 2026.
The corporate alternative minimum tax works as a backstop. Corporations with average annual book income above $1 billion over a three-year period must pay at least 15% of their adjusted financial statement income, even when their regular tax liability would come out lower. 1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 55 – Alternative Minimum Tax Imposed The three-year averaging window prevents a company from dipping below the threshold in a single lean year and escaping the tax. In practice, only a few hundred of the largest publicly traded companies in the country are affected.
The stock buyback excise tax charges 1% on corporate stock repurchases, calculated on a net basis. A company subtracts the value of any new stock it issued during the year from the total value of stock it bought back, and pays 1% on the difference. 2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 4501 If a company issues more stock than it repurchases, it owes nothing. Several categories are exempt: buybacks totaling less than $1 million in a tax year, stock contributed to an employer-sponsored retirement plan or employee stock ownership plan, repurchases that are part of a tax-free corporate reorganization, regulated investment companies, real estate investment trusts, and securities dealers acting in the ordinary course of business. 3Federal Register. Excise Tax on Repurchase of Corporate Stock Biden proposed quadrupling the rate to 4%, but that increase never became law.
What This Meant for Individual Taxpayers
No federal income tax rate on individuals went up under Biden. The seven brackets inherited from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act stayed in place throughout his term, as did the preferential rates on long-term capital gains and the stepped-up basis rule for inherited assets.
Where the Inflation Reduction Act touched household finances directly, it did so by handing out tax credits, not by raising rates. The Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit covered 30% of qualifying efficiency upgrades to a primary residence, up to $3,200 per year, split between a $1,200 cap for items like windows, doors, and insulation and a $2,000 cap for heat pumps, water heaters, and biomass stoves. 4Internal Revenue Service. Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit The Residential Clean Energy Credit covered 30% of the cost of installing solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal heat pumps, fuel cells, and battery storage, with no annual dollar limit on most categories. 5Internal Revenue Service. Residential Clean Energy Credit The New Clean Vehicle Credit was worth up to $7,500 for a qualifying plug-in electric or fuel cell vehicle, with buyers able to transfer the credit to a dealer at the point of sale instead of waiting for a refund. 6Internal Revenue Service. Credits for New Clean Vehicles Purchased in 2023 or After
All three credits have since been terminated. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed in July 2025, cut off the home improvement and residential clean energy credits for property placed in service after December 31, 2025, and ended the new clean vehicle credit for vehicles acquired after September 30, 2025. 7Internal Revenue Service. FAQs for Modification of Sections 25C, 25D, 25E, 30C, 30D, 45L, 45W, and 179D Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Qualifying purchases made before those cutoffs can still be claimed on the appropriate return.
The R&D Change That Wasn’t Biden’s
One tax change that took effect during Biden’s presidency often gets attributed to him and shouldn’t. Starting in 2022, businesses had to capitalize and amortize research and development expenses over five years for domestic work and fifteen years for foreign work, rather than deducting them immediately. That was a real hit for R&D-heavy companies, but it was written into the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 with a delayed effective date of January 1, 2022. Biden did not sign it, and despite bipartisan interest in reversing it during his term, no fix cleared Congress.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act later restored immediate expensing for domestic R&D costs through a new Section 174A, effective for tax years beginning after December 31, 2024. Foreign R&D expenses still have to be amortized over fifteen years.
What Biden Proposed but Couldn’t Pass
Most of the public impression that Biden tried to raise taxes on ordinary earners traces to proposals that never became law. They matter now mainly as a record of what he wanted, because the current legislative environment has moved the opposite way.
On the individual side, the administration proposed:
- Raising the top marginal rate from 37% back to 39.6%, applied to taxable income above $400,000 for single filers and $450,000 for joint filers.
- Taxing long-term capital gains at ordinary income rates for taxpayers earning more than $1 million, replacing the current 20% preferential rate.
- Expanding the 3.8% Net Investment Income Tax, which today applies to investment income above $200,000 for single filers and $250,000 for joint filers, to cover all income above $400,000, including active business income currently outside its reach.8Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 559, Net Investment Income Tax
- Eliminating stepped-up basis for inherited assets above a $5 million per-person threshold, treating death as a taxable event for the appreciation above that line.9Internal Revenue Service. Publication 551 (12/2025), Basis of Assets
None of them advanced through Congress.
On the corporate side, Biden proposed raising the statutory corporate income tax rate from 21% to 28%, partially reversing the TCJA’s cut from 35%. He also wanted to lift the corporate alternative minimum tax from 15% to 21% and raise the GILTI rate on foreign earnings while switching to a country-by-country calculation that would have ended the practice of blending high-tax and low-tax foreign income. None of these were enacted either.
Where Things Stand Now
The net picture heading into 2026 is narrower than the political debate suggests. The two corporate taxes Biden signed, the 15% minimum tax and the 1% buyback excise, remain on the books. The energy credits his law created for households are gone. And the TCJA’s individual rate structure, which Biden had hoped to let expire so the top rate would snap back to 39.6%, was made permanent by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The seven brackets of 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35%, and 37% are now locked in, along with the 20% pass-through deduction under Section 199A. 10Internal Revenue Service. IRS Releases Tax Inflation Adjustments for Tax Year 2026, Including Amendments From the One Big Beautiful Bill11Internal Revenue Service. Qualified Business Income Deduction
So the short answer stands. Biden raised taxes on roughly a few hundred of the country’s biggest corporations. For everyone else, the rates he inherited are the rates still in force.