Republicans putting together a joint tax reform proposal that’s due to be unveiled next week are considering less generous benefits for the wealthy in hopes of attracting more Democratic support.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, one of the six Republican negotiators, told reporters Tuesday that tax writers are ‘basically not cutting taxes very much for the wealthy.’
‘I think they want to do a middle-class tax cut — at least that is what most everybody has said,’ Hatch said, according to multiple news outlets.
The Washington Post says the estate tax is also on the chopping block. Politico said that Trump’s promise to slash the corporate tax rate to 15 percent is under discussion.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, one of the six Republican negotiators, told reporters yesterday that tax writers are ‘basically not cutting taxes very much for the wealthy’
A White House official involved in the talks told DailyMail.com that the details of reform are still being finalized.
The official said that reports that the administration is backing away from its position on corporate taxes or tax cuts for the wealthy are not accurate. Everything is still under discussion, the person said.
President Trump has already said that he’d be willing to back off a tax break for the rich if he had to.
‘What’s going to happen is the individual rate coming down will be substantial for the middle class,’ he said last week.
The administration has doggedly pursued a reduction in the corporate tax rate from 35 percent for to 15 percent in the face of Republican leaders who say it will realistically go no lower than 20 percent.
A billionaire with decades of experience running a business, Trump blames the corporate tax rate for American businesses’ inability to keep up with their foreign competitors.
‘All told, it will be the greatest tax reduction in the history of our country. Greater than ever before. So that’s going to be something. You’ll see a rocket ship. You will see something happen like you’ve never seen,’ Trump pledged during a rally this month in Bismarck, North Dakota.
Trump said then that he would be getting rid of the estate tax, which is also referred to as the death tax, because of when it kicks in.
‘It’s a devastating tax. Julie: We are not going to allow the death tax or the inheritance tax or the whatever-you-want-to-call-it to crush the American Dream. Not going to let it happen,’ Trump said.
He’s been more flexible on his desire to cut the rate for top earners from 39.6 percent to 35 percent, saying last week, ‘If they have to go higher they’ll go higher, frankly.’
‘The rich will not be gaining at all with this plan. We’re looking at the middle class and we’re looking for jobs,’ Trump said. ‘I think the wealthy will be pretty much where they are.’
Democrat Ron Wyden told the Post it’s ‘just absurd’ to believe that the rich will not be benefiting from the Republican tax plan.
‘In virtually all this stuff where they go out, they use the presidential megaphone to say this will be for the middle class, it won’t be for the wealthy, but then people like me start going through the fine print, and all you do is see these big gifts to the rich and few,’ he said.
House Republican tax writers are insisting they will have a joint statement on tax reform prepped and ready by next week.
President Trump has already said that he’d be willing to back off a tax break for the rich if he had to. ‘What’s going to happen is the individual rate coming down will be substantial for the middle class,’ he said last week
Kevin Brady, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, is promising to release core details about business and individual rates and a ‘unified consensus document’ that will underline the path forward.
Brady pledged to ‘jettison the special interest provisions for some’ as they move to simplify the tax code and lower tax rates ‘for everybody,’ as he spoke about the status of tax reform on Maria Bartiromo’s Sunday Morning Futures.
For that to happen, the House must pass a budget by mid-October, he said.
‘No budget, no tax reform….That’s clear,’ Brady told Bartiromo. ‘And if Republicans don’t unite and move this budget so that we can move tax reform, then I’m convinced the president will look elsewhere for partners to deliver on this.
‘So this budget is incredibly important.’
The fiscal year 2018 budget will serve as the basis for revisions to the tax code that can pass through a process called reconciliation in Senate.
In pursuing a reconciliation vote, Republicans can rely on their simple majority, or Republicans and a few Democrats, to get a tax bill passed