NPR. All across the country, there are efforts to tax the wealthy more, from California

voting on a billionaire wealth tax to Washington State. In March, it just approved a new

tax on individuals or couples earning a million dollars or more a year. Now, a common criticism

of these state policies is that wealthy people would just move out of state to avoid those taxes.

But avoiding taxes by moving is a lot harder if those taxes are set at the federal level.

In March, Bernie Sanders introduced a bill for a 5% wealth tax on billionaires. And Democratic

Senator Chris Van Hollen has a bill to make high earners pay more tax. What's interesting

about Chris's bill is that it's also a bill for big tax cuts for lower

earners.

My goal is to ensure that people who are working paycheck to paycheck, in other words,

struggling to make ends meet, that they don't have to pay a federal income tax.

This is the indicator from Planet Money.

I'm Darym Woods.

And I'm Adrian Ma.

Today on the show, tax cuts for the middle and working classes and tax hikes for the rich.

What's behind this trend?

Well, we'll ask Senator Chris Van Hollen to explain his bill and hear from a tax expert who has some

reservations.

Senator Chris Van Holland's big idea is more progressive income tax.

We have a skewed tax system. It is really stacked toward

the very wealthy and people who make money off of money and stacked against people who are making

a paycheck, you know, day by day. What Chris's bill does is make earnings below $46,000 tax-free at the federal level.

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