WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump is calling for an overhaul of the tax code that would eliminate income taxes for millions of Americans, while lowering them for the highest-income earners and business.
The plan unveiled Monday would eliminate federal income taxes on individuals earning less than $25,000 and married couples earning less than $50,000.
But the plan would also benefit businesses and the rich. It would lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent and lower the highest income tax rate from 39.6 percent to 25 percent.
But Trump said the plan would also impact the wealthy by reducing or eliminating most deductions and loopholes.
“In other words, it’s going to cost me a fortune,” he said at a news conference at his Trump Tower skyscraper in Manhattan.
Trump wants to eliminate the so-called “carried interest loophole” that allows managers of hedge funds and private equity firms to pay a lower tax rate than most individuals.
The billionaire real estate mogul says the country would pay for the tax cuts through a combination of eliminating deductions and loopholes. He also wants to allow corporations to bring money held in overseas accounts back to the United States after paying a one-time tax of 10 percent.
In sum, he says, the changes he wants to enact would not add to the annual federal budget deficit or the national debt.
“We have an amazing code,” Trump said of his tax system. “It will be simple. It will be easy. It will be fair.”
Trump estimated that his plan would lead the economy to grow at least 3 percent a year, and as much as 5 or 6 percent.
The tax plan is the third major policy proposal from Trump, who has also outlined plans for immigration and guns. He has been criticized for failing to unveil specific policy proposals as he’s risen in early preference polling.
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Trump estimated that his plan would lead the economy to grow at least 3 percent a year, and as much as 5 or 6 percent.
Donald and Jeb! “Four Percent” Bush together in Fantasysland. [1]
[1] Or perhaps the Bog of Eternal Stench.
Decades of garish living, horrible buildings and crass talk, years of yakking about ‘what’s wrong with this nation’ to wit just about everything, a PT Barnum big splashy opening, high polls numbers from the rubes too stupid to know what smart people even sound like, then its September and time to roll out the New Thing, so up comes this gigantic cake, out of the top pops the Donald holding his Plan, and … surprise … Herman Cain in white face.
If we understood obligation and debt and money beyond the tribal context in which our tiny little human brains evolved, this would not keep happening. But, noooooo.
I was thinking Steve Forbes and his magic " Eliminate the IRS with a Postcard" act.
They used to say George HW Bush wanted to “make the world safe for inheritance”…
If Donald included a 50% reduction in the military budget, ending our useless foreign wars, I might admit that it would be possible to run the government on that very much reduced income, but, of course he not only didn’t do that, he has pledged to greatly increase both the military budget and our involvement in useless foreign wars. Incidentally, families earning less than $50,000 per year already pay very little in income tax.
He’s trying to pitch this as an increase on the wealthy. I think it will depend on the individual circumstances. Wealthy taxpayers that have a lot of tax preference items and deductions might possibly pay more. Others, who don’t take that many deductions will pay less because the top rate with be cut from 39% to 25%. Overall, it’s hard to see it as being revenue neutral, especially with large reductions for middle-income taxpayers who pay a very substantial portion of total revenues. I’d like to see how the experts score it.
One thing is certain, he is going to make Mitt Romney’s 47% into 60%.