The White House insisted Tuesday that the GOP’s tax reform bill ‘could cost the president’ personally.
Trump has not released his tax forms because, as the White House has repeatedly claimed, they are under federal audit. Yet, his spokeswoman asserted today that he could be taking a hit financially.
‘We expect that it likely will, certainly on the personal side, could cost the president a lot of money,’ Sarah Huckabee Sanders stated. ‘Again, the president’s focus hasn’t necessarily been at all on himself.’
She admitted later that ‘on the business side he could benefit’ without going into detail.
The White House insisted Tuesday that the GOP’s tax reform bill ‘could cost the president’ personally
Tax reform legislation that passed the House on Tuesday with a shove from Republicans and will go before the Senate this evening contains a number a provisions that would help Trump.
The rate on top earners, for instance, is reduced from 39.6 percent to 37 percent.
A surprise provision in the final version also gives real estate owners with income-producing properties a 20 percent reduction in their taxes if they use what is known as a pass-through rate.
For corporations, the alternative minimum tax is repealed entirely, and for joint filers like Trump and his wife it applies after the first $84,500 of income.
Also included was a doubling of the estate tax exemption, pushing it up to 11 million for individuals and 22 million for married couples.
Trump and his children would presumably benefit from the tax cuts for wealthy Americans.
An analysis commissioned by NBC in mid-November that was based on a leaked Trump tax return from 2005 found that the president and his wife could save as much as $20 million based on changes to the tax structure.
Trump’s heirs would have raked in another $1.1 billion or so if the estate tax had been totally eliminated.
The real estate mogul’s net worth is not known, but Forbes estimated in October after digging through some of his records, that it’s in the ballpark of $3.1 billion.
An earlier estimation had put Trump’s net worth at $3.7 billion. He’s had legal battles to fight and a presidential campaign to fund since then, contributing to his decline in value. He is now ranked the 248th richest person in America, nearly 100 spots down from his ranking of 156 in 2016.
Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index estimates that Trump has an even lower net worth of $2.86 billion.
Either way, Trump is firmly among the nation’s wealthiest residents and will pay taxes on the revenue he receives from his holdings at the top rate, which is being lowered in the GOP tax plan until at least 2025.
Trump claimed last month that tax overhaul would ‘cost me a fortune’ as he pitched the deal in Missouri.
‘Believe me, this is not good for me,’ he said. ‘I have some very wealthy friends. Not so happy with me, but that’s okay.’
‘We expect that it likely will, certainly on the personal side, could cost the president a lot of money,’ Sarah Huckabee Sanders stated. ‘Again, the president’s focus hasn’t necessarily been at all on himself’
Politifact said it was ‘false’ in September that Trump would not be gaining as a result of the tax plan.
The fact-checking website said Trump’s claim that ‘I don’t benefit’ was ‘dubious’ for the aforementioned reasons.
Without his recent tax returns, Politifact noted that it could not say for certain how much Trump and his family would gain financially from tax cuts.
His children would be boosted by the change in the tax bill to the estate tax, regardless.
At the White House on Tuesday, a reporter rattled off all he ways that the Trumps would seemingly be helped by the tax bill, and Sanders suggested the president would not prosper.
‘This is a tax plan that we hope benefits all Americans. Primarily and priority number one is middle class Americans. That has been this administration’s focus. We feel like that is certainly addressed and been prioritized in this legislation, and we’re going to be very excited to sign it, hopefully in the coming days,’ Sanders said.
Asked if she was disputing analyses that reforms to the tax system would give the president an advantage, she replied: ‘I said that in some ways, particularly on the personal side, the president will likely take a big hit, but on the business side he could benefit.
‘But the biggest focus for this White House has been to make sure all Americans are better off today, after this tax package passes, then they were beforehand,’ she said.
The Senate intends to vote on the bill late tonight with several amendments to force it into conformity with regulations that allow leadership to approve it with a bare majority. House legislators will then have to pass it again before the president can sign it tomorrow.