President Donald Trump will unveil his tax-slash plan on Wednesday that’s expected to be a windfall for corporations and a boon for wealthy Americans.
The proposal will reportedly include across-the-board cuts for individual earners and a reduction in the number of tax brackets from seven to three.
His administration has waffled on tax benefits for the rich, proposing to drop rates in a blueprint, then back track once a majority of Senate Democrats sent a letter to the White House drawing a line in the sand at a cut for the wealthy.
The president will pump the deal the White House made with leading House and Senate Republicans on Wednesday in Vice President Mike Pence’s home state of Indiana.
President Donald Trump will unveil his tax-slash plan on Wednesday that’s expected to be a windfall for corporations and a boon for wealthy Americans
Trump said this month that the rich would not be gaining under his plan and that he’d be willing to sacrifice a proposed upper-tier cut to earn the support of reticent Democrats.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin famously pledged, ‘Any reductions we have in upper income taxes will be offset by less deductions, so that there will be no tax — absolute tax cut for the upper class.’
Mnuchin told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday, ‘What it was and it is still, it is what the president’s objective was.’
‘And as it relates to the high end, you know, there’s lots of changes. We’re getting rid of lots of deductions. We’re trying to get rid of state and locally deductions to get the federal government out of subsidizing it,’ he said. ‘And yes, I can tell you the current plan for many, many people, it will not reduce taxes on the high end.’
The Republican proposal is said to includes a drop in both the corporate rate and a the top tax bracket, although negotiators are still haggling over the details.
Corporate taxes would go down to 20 percent from 35 percent, sources told the Washington Post. The upper-income bracket would top off at 35 percent, a shift downward from 39.6 percent.
‘It’ll be the largest tax cuts in the history of our country,’ Trump declared Monday on an Alabama radio show.
Trump told reporters yesterday evening that the plan his White House crafted with Republicans on Capitol Hill had been finalized.
‘I think it will be terrific. I think it’s going to go through, and it will be the largest tax cut in the history of our country,’ he said just before he boarded Air Force One for a flight to Washington.
He went on to suggest that the proposal was not actually finished, saying it is his ‘hope’ the corporate rate would be 15 percent.
‘I hope the corporate rate is going to be 15 percent,’ he said. ‘We’ll see what happens, but I hope it’s going to be 15 percent. But it’s going to be substantially lower so we bring jobs back into our country.’
Trump has doggedly pursued a 15 percent rate for big businesses.
The existing rate is a drag on job creation and economic growth, he’s said, and has allowed countries like China to get ahead.
‘I can tell you the current plan for many, many people, it will not reduce taxes on the high end,’ Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Sunday said, even thought the plan currently calls for a tax slash for the rich
When it comes to individual rates, Trump has proposed a 10 percent floor. House Republicans have said they want to lock in a 12 percent rate. The president said Sunday evening that it would be one of the two, saying that whatever they offered it would be ‘much lower than it is right now.’
‘This is a plan for the middle class and for companies so they can bring back jobs,’ he stated.
To pass tax reform, the president will need all but two Republicans in the Senate to jump on board or he will need the support of moderate Democrats. He’s explictly targeted four that are up for reelection next year in states that he won, including North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp.
Trump said Sunday that he believes the plan – that he’s been advocating in road show events – will pass.
‘I believe we will be successful in the largest tax cut in our country’s history,’ he said.