Sen. Joe Manchin told White House officials he would support a tax targeting billionaires as part of President Joe Biden's roughly $2 trillion social spending and climate legislation, The Washington Post reported.
The Post, citing three sources, said the West Virginia Democrat also gave the White House a list of spending and revenue proposals that he supported.
Manchin in October had rejected Democrats' attempts to impose a new tax on billionaires.
A tax on billionaires, though, faces long odds to approval because other Democrat lawmakers in both the House and Senate have not backed the idea, the Post reported Friday.
The billionaire tax was omitted from the House version of Build Back Better. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and other Democrats have expressed concerns the measure was not thoroughly vetted.
Aides in Congress said the billionaires tax, affecting roughly 700 taxpayers with more than $1 billion in assets or $100 million in annual income for three consecutive years, would impose a 23.8% tax rate for long-term capital gains on tradable assets, whether or not they have been sold. It would also would allow taxpayers to take deductions for losses on assets.
Manchin on Sunday said he would not support the current Build Back Better version. In a 50-50 Senate, his backing is needed to pass the bill via reconciliation.
Progressives responded angrily to Manchin's comments, and several said they would focus on voting rights and passing select items from the spending bill.
Biden said Tuesday that he and Manchin were "going to get something done" on the proposed social spending and climate legislation.
Politico reported earlier in the week that Manchin wants the Build Back Better bill to go through Senate committees and focus on rolling back the 2017 tax cuts signed by former President Donald Trump.
The Post said that Manchin’s recent inclusion of the billionaire tax indicated potential common ground between the president and the senator.
Alan J. Auerbach, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley, has been advising Manchin about tax policy, two people familiar with the matter told the Post.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., proposed a tax on the unrealized gains of billionaires as a way to pay for Biden's massive social spending legislation.
Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema another moderate Democrat, has raised concerns about some of the revenue measures in the spending bill.
Sinema has questioned whether business owners who "pass through" income onto their personal income tax returns should be exempted from a new "surtax" intended to fall on the very rich, two people told the Post.
The Arizona senator already forced the White House to dramatically alter its tax proposals after saying she was against increasing the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%.
Reuters contributed to this story.
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