Do billionaires pay just 8 percent in taxes? Not really There are some "facts" that President Biden likes to recite in almost every speech. In the past year, in more than 30 appearances, the president has referred to billionaires paying about 8 percent in federal income taxes. He said it in his last State of the Union address, and odds are he will say it again when he addresses Congress in March. But if you check Treasury Department calculations for what the richest Americans already pay in taxes, you would see that the top 1 percent pay in excess of 20 percent in income taxes and more than 30 percent in all federal taxes. Even if you drill down to the top 400 wealthiest taxpayers, they paid an effective tax rate of 23.1 percent in 2014 (the last available year). These taxpayers — with $127 billion of income — that year paid $29.4 billion in income taxes, or more than 2 percent of all income taxes, the IRS said. That's more than the bottom 70 percent of taxpayers combined. Here's the funny thing: Biden's 8 percent estimate is derived from that same tax data on the top 400 taxpayers. So what's going on? The president is describing a tax system that he wishes existed — not the system in place. You can read our full report — and find out the Pinocchio rating for the president's statement — by clicking this link. Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here. Did you hear something fact-checkable? Send it here; we'll check it out. Trump reaches for an old playbook to cast doubt on the economy The U.S. economy is doing pretty well, with ample job growth and low unemployment. After the shock of post-pandemic-shutdown inflation, however, Americans until recently seemed pretty grumpy about the economy and had little inclination to give the Biden administration much credit. But surveys increasingly show that Americans have begun to appreciate the state of the economy. The University of Michigan recently reported that consumer sentiment had reached its highest level in 2½ years, with Americans believing the worst of inflation had passed. The rise in optimism was consistent across all age and income groups, education and geographical locations — and even political affiliation. That all bodes well for the president's reelection campaign. Just a few days later, on the eve of winning the New Hampshire primary, former president Donald Trump reached back to the playbook he used in the 2016 election, when the economy was also on an upswing — suggesting the unemployment numbers are fake. "We had the best unemployment rates ever," he told supporters. "And they were real unemployment, not like you have today where nobody's working and they consider it to be. It's a whole different thing. Too complicated to explain, but it's a whole different thing. You don't have to know about it." For more on Trump's cynical — and false — maneuver, click the link below to read the complete article. We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP and @AdriUsero) or Facebook. We're also on TikTok. Read about our process and rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. About the cats: It's a Friday and sometimes our fact checks deal with heavy subjects. So we hope to bring a smile to your face. Scroll down to read other Biden-related fact checks | 
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