NORTH HAMPTON, N.H. >> Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday sought to put daylight between herself and President Joe Biden on tax policy, making it the first issue on which she is trying to stand apart from an administration in which she holds a key role.

Stepping up her efforts to win over the business community, Harris announced that she would increase the capital gains tax at a far lower rate than what Biden had proposed — a move that came after pressure from her campaign’s biggest donors to back off some of its most aggressive tax proposals.

Harris’ proposal, which she introduced at a campaign event in New Hampshire, was directed squarely at business owners and wealthier Americans who are skeptical of Democrats and have gravitated toward former President Donald Trump, her GOP rival. In the same speech, she rolled out her new plan for an expanded tax break for startups.

Biden had proposed taxing capital gains at 39.6% for Americans who make more than $1 million a year. Harris said Wednesday that she would tax investment income for those Americans at a rate of 28%, a reversal from her earlier support for the tax increases included in the White House budget released this spring.

“If you earn a million dollars a year or more, the tax rate on your long-term capital gains will be 28% under my plan,” Harris said at a brewery in North Hampton, N.H. “Because we know when the government encourages investment, it leads to broad-based economic growth and it creates jobs, which makes our economy stronger.”

Harris’ proposed rate of 28% does not include an additional surtax on investment income, according to two people familiar with the campaign’s proposal. One of those people said a 5% surtax would apply on top of the 28%, bringing the total rate to 33%. With the surtax, Biden’s proposal would have raised the top capital-gains rate to 44.6%. The top capital-gains tax rate now is 23.8%, inclusive of a 3.8% surtax.

The ideas follow what had been an effort by Harris to coast largely on Biden’s agenda during the opening weeks of her campaign. She had sought to take credit for what she says are his successes while offering an array of plans to combat higher prices and inflation, problems that voters have tended to hold Biden at least partly responsible for. That has led to an awkward dance of embracing the unpopular president and his policies even as she tries to run as a change candidate.

Not just anti-Trump

In addition to her policy shift, Harris tiptoed away from the language Biden had used during his reelection campaign, arguing that she was running not only to block Trump from returning to office but to usher in an agenda that would excite her voters.

“When we say fight, it is a fight for something, not against something,” she said. “That’s what we’re talking about when we talk about a new way forward. This is for something.”

Harris has sought to present herself as an ally to businesses and investors in a way that Biden did not. That has meant courting donors from Wall Street as well as Silicon Valley, , and embracing some of the language and policy ideas favored by businesses.

The Trump campaign dismissed Harris’ small business plan, noting that the vice president has promised to eliminate a package of tax cuts approved during his administration that are set to expire next year. Trump’s campaign said those cuts “allowed business owners to deduct up to 20% of qualified business income,” reduced taxes on new equipment purchases and took steps to bolster small businesses as compared to larger ones.

Modest change for small businesses

While Harris cast the expanded deduction for startup companies as a way to drive economic growth, tax experts said the proposed policy was ultimately a modest change. Under current law, companies can deduct $5,000 of startup costs immediately and then write off other qualifying expenses over 15 years. Harris’ plan would essentially speed up a company’s ability to deduct its startup costs.

“It’s a question of timing,” said Garrett Watson, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, a think tank in Washington that tends to support lower taxes. “Instead of having it immediately, you have to do a chunk of it over that 15-year period of time.”

That could help new businesses, but Watson said the biggest tax benefit of the change would go to new companies that do not stay in business long enough to deduct all of their startup expenses over 15 years. (Many startups fail.)

The size of the tax break would be relatively small, most likely around $20 billion over 10 years, experts estimated, and the impact on overall economic growth could be small.

This report contains information from the Associated Press.