Did Sanders propose 52% tax on people earning $29,000? Fact Check

Viral claims circulating online assert that Bernie Sanders proposes to tax people making $29,000 or over at a 52% rate to fund a Medicare-For-All program.

FALSE

The claims state that presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders has proposed taxing individuals earning over $29,000 at a 52% tax rate. One popular version of the claim, which was tweeted by actor James Woods and is below, calculates that someone on a minimum wage of $15 per hour would ultimately end up earning only $7.20 per hour after a 40 hour week after being taxed.

Bernie Sanders said at the debate that he wants minimum wage to be $15 per hour.
15$ X 40 hr week = $600
600$ X 52 weeks per yr = $31,200
Bernie Sanders wants free health care for all and was asked how he would pay for it. His answer was raise taxes to 52% on anybody making over $29,000 per year.
52% of $31,200 = $16,224 in tax
$31,200 – $16,224 = $14,976 is your pay
$14,976 ÷ 52 weeks = $288 per week
$288 ÷ 40 hr week = $7.20 per hour

The claim is false, on a number of levels. Firstly, the author of the above doesn’t understand how tax brackets work. Secondly, even if the maths above was correct, Sanders has not proposed a 52% tax rate at $29,000.

To elaborate on both points. The above “maths” fails to understand the pertinent point that someone proposing a 52% tax hike at those earning over $29,000 would only begin that tax rate on income over $29,000. The calculation above incorrectly applies the 52% rate on every dollar earned from $1 upwards. This would not be correct, and would inevitably grossly exaggerate the amount of tax due. Such a calculation would not even take into account the standard deduction amount.

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However, such a point is entirely irrelevant since Bernie Sanders has never claimed he would propose a 52% tax rate on those earning over $29,000. We could not locate any point during the debates when Sanders made this claim, despite many of the rumours circulating stating that Sanders mentioned these numbers during a Democratic primary debate.

On Bernie Sander’s US Senate sub-domain, there is a document titled “OPTIONS TO FINANCE MEDICARE FOR ALL” that outlines a number of options about how a Medicare-For-All program could be funded. Again, however, there is nothing that even resembles the claims made by this rumour, that a 52% tax rate could be applied to those earning over $29,000.

Among the options for funding there is the option of a 4% healthcare premium on income, but those households earning $29,000 or less would be exempt from this premium. Alternatively there is the option for higher progressive tax rates (where those in higher income brackets pay higher tax rates.) These can be seen below.

-40 percent on income between $250,000 and $500,000.

– 45 percent on income between $500,000 and $2 million.

– 50 percent on income between $2 million and $10 million. (In 2014, only 136,000 households, the top 0.1 percent of taxpayers, had income between $2 million and $10 million.)

– 52 percent on income above $10 million. (In 2014, only 16,700 households, just 0.02 percent of taxpayers, had income exceeding $10 million.)

With this option, to be applied to a 52% tax bracket, you would have to be earning over $10,000,000, and again, this tax rate would only apply to income over that amount.

Since Sanders did not propose a 52% tax rate on $29,000 or over, nor is there any mention of this in documents pertaining to funding Medicare-For-All, we rate this claim false.