Capital-Gains Tax Nears 45% in Biden’s Plan to Target Ultra-Rich

President Joe Biden is proposing a series of tax increases on investors and top-earning Americans in his annual budget request to Congress.

The tax proposals, which are at the center of what the White House estimates is a $3 trillion deficit-reduction plan, will be immediately rejected by Congressional Republicans. But the ideas set up Democrats’ approach to the debt-ceiling fight later this year, as Republicans are gearing up to ask for spending cuts.

One of the biggest changes would be nearly doubling the rate of the capital-gains tax, and applying an additional surcharge to fund Medicare, which would mean taxes ...