Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris blasted former President Trump’s tax and economic policies, reiterating her claim that his plan to impose blanket tariffs on imports would cost Americans roughly $4,000 per year.
Accepting her party’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago August 22, Vice President Harris alluded to statements the Republican presidential nominee has made openly pondering a tariff of up to 20 percent on all imported goods.
“He intends to enact what in effect is a national sales tax — call it a Trump tax — that would raise prices on middle class families by almost $4,000 a year,” Harris said, adding, “Instead of a Trump tax hike, we will pass a middle-class tax cut that will benefit more than 100 million Americans.”
Trump has suggested using the revenue from increased tariffs to pay for cuts in other levies, including the corporate income tax. He has also raised the notion of replacing federal income taxes with tariffs.
Harris previously used the $4,000 figure in her speech announcing her economic agenda, but it’s unclear which estimates she is relying on. The Center for American Progress released a report concluding that costs for American families would increase by $3,900 per year if Trump were to impose a blanket 20 percent tariff on imports, while the National Taxpayers Union estimated in February that Trump’s original suggestion of a 10 percent tariff would cost households $3,942 per year.
Other organizations have estimated a lower price tag. For example, the Peterson Institute for International Economics said August 21 that Trump’s tariff proposals would cost the average American household over $2,600, and the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center recently estimated that middle-income households would pay about $1,350 more.
The $4,000 figure is a familiar refrain in political contexts, hearkening back to the Trump administration’s claim that cutting the corporate tax rate in 2017 would raise the average household’s annual income by at least that amount. However, economists from the Joint Committee on Taxation and Federal Reserve found that that didn’t occur.
The Trump campaign countered that it was economic policies enacted under the Biden administration that have created a unique tax on Americans.
“The Harris-Biden hidden tax of inflation has cost the average American family an extra $28,000+ paying for the increased cost of living,” the campaign said, citing a report by the Joint Economic Committee that tracked the inflation rate from January 2021, when Biden entered office, until July this year.