Our blind raters scored the candidates on their response to: What changes, if any, would you support to the federal tax code?

Beth Ellen Adubato

  1. Reinstate the EV tax credit and other clean energy credits
  2. Would return the rules on the Child Tax Care Credit so that parents do not need a SSN (the child still requires one)
  3. Change the “Trump Accounts” which are designed to “produce entrepreneurs” to the “baby bond” proposal of Cory Booker, which were designed to close the racial wealth gap.
  4. Raise the marginal tax rates for income over $1,000,000 and again for $2,000,000…in other words, progressive tax rates.
  5. Put the “pass-through” exemptions back to 37% from the OBBB’s 29.6%, which some experts say was a major win for entrepreneurs and high-net-worth people
  6. Restore the previous cap ($10 million) on capital gains from the sale of qualified small business stock (QSBS)
  7. Lower the “new, expanded” special industry deductions
  8. Not tax-related, but restore the Biden-era student loan forgiveness program and keep the ARPA rule that it is not counted as taxable income

Brian Varela

We need to make billionaires and corporations pay their fair share. Right now, nurses and firefighters pay taxes out of every paycheck, while many billionaires use tricks like “buy, borrow, die” to avoid paying anything at all. I’d close loopholes like stepped-up basis and carried interest that allow the wealthy to pass fortunes to their heirs tax-free or at an extremely low effective tax rate, raise the top marginal tax rate on incomes over a million dollars, increase the estate tax, and ensure we are aggressively taxing billionaires who have record-high amounts of wealth. We can’t keep asking working families to shoulder the burden while billionaires pay a lower effective tax rate than their employees.

At the same time, we need to do more for working families. The OBBB made the Child Tax Credit permanent, but it still leaves behind the families who need help most, those earning the least get the smallest benefit because the credit isn’t fully refundable. When my mom got sick, my parents ended up going out of business and I became the breadwinner for my family, so I know what it’s like to stretch every dollar while you’re terrified about the next bill. As someone who now runs ten affordable childcare centers across New Jersey, I see every day how much families are struggling with the cost of raising kids. I’ll fight to make the Child Tax Credit fully refundable, expand it to $3,600 or more per child, and add a baby bonus for newborns. Because the 2021 expansion cut child poverty nearly in half, and we should be building on that success, not walking away from it.

Megan O’Rourke

Many changes are required to create a more rational system that supports the working class. Two main foci are: 1) revise inheritance taxes to eliminate the step-up in basis and alleviate generational wealth accumulation; 2) increase capital gains tax rates to be at least equal to labor income tax rates.
Michael Roth

Republicans have used the tax code to reshape the American economy in favor of the ultra-wealthy billionaires and multinational corporations, while working people struggle and the social security trust fund is set to run out of cash in less than a decade. Tom Kean Jr. was the decisive vote on a tax plan that gave trillions of dollars of tax breaks to billionaires and corporations, leading to the largest wealth transfer from the poor to the wealthy in history. I invested $1 trillion into working families when I led the Paycheck Protection Program and narrowed the wealth gap for the first time in decades. We need comprehensive reform on the tax code, not just tax brackets. Here are a few principles for a tax plan:

  • Cut taxes for middle-class families, working parents, small businesses, and seniors on fixed incomes so that people can keep more of their hard-earned dollars
  • Impose a minimum tax on multinational corporations in line with what individuals pay
  • Reform capital gains taxes to be in line with ordinary income
  • Increase estate and gift taxes
  • Close loopholes like carried interest and stepped-up basis
  • Eliminate Trump tariffs and restore the power of the purse to Congress

Rebecca Bennett

We need to undo the Trump tax cuts for the super wealthy and use those funds to undo the damage of OBBB. I am for tax cuts for working families and against cuts for the super rich.

Tina Shah

Instead of a tax code written by, and for, corporate special interests with the direct support of Congressional Republicans like Tom Kean Jr., we need a tax system that is fair, and that lifts up hardworking New Jerseyans.

The Big Ugly Bill has now made the gap between us and Trump’s billionaire buddies wider, from a top marginal tax rate cut to tax exemptions for special interests – this bill does nothing but make the rich even richer and puts more of the tax burden on our working families. 

In Congress, I will work to reverse the disastrous effects the Big Ugly Bill has had on our tax code and our country. I’d also work to fully restore the SALT deduction, so that we’re not double taxed here in New Jersey.