Highlights of Trump's Tax Plan

President Trump's tax reform plan was only one page long, and thus short on details, but a quick run-down of today's news stories will give you an idea of what it means.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin can't guarantee middle class wouldn't pay more under tax plan

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin today told ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos that he couldn’t say how Donald Trump's sweeping tax overhaul plan would affect the president personally, while also declining to guarantee that middle-class families wouldn't pay more under the proposal.
"I can't make any guarantees until this thing is done and it’s on the president's desk. But I can tell you, that’s our number one objective in this," Mnuchin said on "Good Morning America."
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Another "objective" of the plan, Mnuchin said, is to ensure no absolute tax cuts for the wealthy. But when pressed further by Stephanopoulos, he declined to make any guarantees on that point as well, and said he couldn't say how the plan would affect Trump himself, amid continued calls for the president to release his tax returns.

CEOs Salivate Over Trump's Tax-Cut Plans, Vague as They May Be

Nothing gets Corporate America going like a tax-cut proposal.
Chief executive officers are keeping their fingers crossed that the skeletal details offered up by President Donald Trump’s administration Wednesday will turn into a concrete proposal to slash the corporate tax rate to 15 percent from the current 35 percent. That would free them up to invest and fuel economic expansion, they said in interviews and conference calls this week.
Skeptics argue that companies would only pass along tax savings to investors, boosting special dividends and buybacks. The one-page list of principles that Trump’s administration released Wednesday cited the elimination of “tax breaks for special interests,” signaling that some companies might have to give up subsidies they currently receive. But for now, the nation’s business chieftains are rooting for the Republican president.

The last time companies got a break on overseas profits, it didn't work out well

The Trump administration wants to give companies a break on profits earned overseas and brought back to the United States — a program that's been tried before to little effect.
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In the 2004 case, 9,700 companies were eligible to take part in a tax holiday that would bring the overseas cash back at a rate of 5.25 percent, well below the 35 percent rate for profits earned abroad.
Of that group, 843 firms participated. They brought home $312 billion in qualified earnings, or about one-third of the total cash held overseas, according to the CRS. That translated into total deductions of $265 billion.
In the 2005-06 time frame, Pfizer, which repatriated $37 billion, slashed 10,000 jobs. Merck, which brought back $15.9 billion, cut 7,000 jobs, and HP pared its employment rolls by 14,500 after repatriating $14.5 billion.
Most of the money went to repairing balance sheets and rewarding shareholders, according to the CRS. According to one study cited, as much as 91 cents on the dollar went to share repurchases, even though that, along with compensation increases, was an expressly prohibited use by Congress.
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Fiscal FactCheck: How Much Will Trump's Tax Plan Cost?

The White House released principles and a framework for tax reform today. We applaud the President's focus on tax reform, but the plan includes far more detail on how the Administration would cut taxes than on how they would pay for those cuts. Based on what we know so far, the plan could cost $3 to $7 trillion over a decade– our base-case estimate is $5.5 trillion in revenue loss over a decade. Without adequate offsets, tax reform could drive up the federal debt, harming economic growth instead of boosting it.
The framework proposes a number of specific changes including: consolidating and reducing individual income tax rates to 10, 25, and 35 percent; doubling the standard deduction; cutting the business tax rate to 15 percent on both corporations and pass-through businesses; repealing the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) and estate tax; repealing the 3.8 percent investment surtax from the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"); moving to a territorial tax system; and imposing a one-time tax on money held overseas.
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Trump Tax Plan Is a Trail of Broken Promises

The bottom line: Tax cuts may be enacted this year, as the plan is to do it without Democrats, but the corporate rate won't be lowered all the way to 15 percent, given the specter of massive deficits. Some of the ideas the White House has suggested for broadening the tax base, like eliminating the deduction for state and local taxes, may face rough sailing, even with some Republicans.
The administration claims it will pick up a lot of revenue from a proposal to slap a 10 percent tax on un-repatriated foreign-source income. But that would only raise a one-time total of $250 billion, and Trump has talked about using that for an infrastructure plan. If instead the administration proposes to use the $250 billion as an offset to the tax cuts, it's a drop in the bucket.
The plan reneges on numerous Trump campaign pledges: that his tax plan wouldn't increase the deficit, that it would primarily benefit the middle class, and that the rich wouldn't get much of a tax break. Further, while boosting the standard deduction, the White House wouldn't say whether it might eliminate the personal exemption; if so, some large middle-class families might not get any tax cut.
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one its got sodding bells on.

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@LaFeminista

Given all the crappy news out there today, thanks for that.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

earthling1's picture

This is getting so old.
Hell, why don't we just eliminate all taxes and have the military run on personal donations? After all, the military is not protecting us, the people. They are protecting corporate imterests and their wealth. Let them pay for protection. They rule the military now anyway.
If any terrorists come 'round my house I'll take care of 'em myself.
And nobody's fixin' the roads and bridges anyway, no matter who's paying taxes.
Mini rant. Ahh, feel better.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

They both lied their asses into office.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

moderates can't do it

The tide is quickly turning against the new ObamaCare repeal legislation.

At least 21 Republicans have said they would vote no on the revised GOP healthcare bill negotiated by centrist Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.) and conservative Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.).

Those "no" votes include Reps. Patrick Meehan (Pa.), Ryan Costello (Pa.), Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), Jaime Herrera Beutler (Wash.) and John Katko (N.Y.), all centrists who had reservations about the previous ObamaCare repeal bill that was pulled from a floor vote last month because of a lack of GOP support.

On top of that, a trio of usually reliable Republicans — Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (Calif.), Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) and Mario Diaz-Balart (Fla.) — told the Hill that they were undecided on the new bill after saying they were yes votes on the earlier legislation.

“I’m absolutely undecided,” Diaz-Balart, a member of the GOP whip team, told The Hill. “I was a yes before, but there are a lot of red flags” with the revised bill.

It’s unclear how dozens of other Republicans would vote this time, but the number of Republicans publicly opposed or leaning against the bill is enough to raise doubts about whether the House would pass it in its current form.

Twenty-three GOP defections would be enough to kill House Republicans’ ObamaCare repeal-and-replacement plan, assuming every House Democrat votes against it.

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The arrogance and the stupidity of it! They're replacing the tax code with a wish list and they think that they are so mighty that they can admit it and there will be no consequences. The only thing stupider would have been if Mnuchin had said, "Sure they will, but why should I care?"

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On to Biden since 1973

karl pearson's picture

Trump's tax plan reduces the current 7 tax brackets to 3 brackets. The wing-nut Republican dream is a flat tax, promoted for years by past presidential candidate Steve Forbes. More brackets result in a more progressive tax. IMO Trump's plan is "foot in door" to make the income tax a regressive tax--which was never the intention. Also, Trump's plan eliminates the 15% bracket where a big chunk of the middle class is. These people will be in the 25% rate and pay more.

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@karl pearson The fair thing to do, it seems to me, is to have a linear progressive formula. Maybe folks in the past would've said it was too complex, but that's not an excuse with all the simple programs out there.

This basically gives an "infinite" number of tax brackets.
And of course, it needn't, and probably shouldn't, be truly linear.

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snoopydawg's picture

Can anyone tell me why corporations get subsidies? Was it originally so that they would build their companies in a certain state or does that go under tax breaks?

I think I have found some answers to my question, but I still don't understand why they are still getting them after their businesses have become successful.

Here's a partial list of how much these companies get in subsidies.

Boeing: $13,174,075,797. ...
General Motors: $3,494,237,703. ...
Royal Dutch Shell: $2,038,202,298. ...
Dow Chemical: $1,408,228,374. ...
Goldman Sachs: $661,979,222. ...
Google: $632,044,922. ...
Walt Disney: $381,525,727. ...
Wal-Mart Stores: $149,942,595.

https://mic.com/articles/85101/10-corporations-receiving-massive-public-...
And on top of that, with them offshoring their headquarters to foreign countries, they don't pay taxes and they get refunds anyway. How they can get refunds if they don't pay taxes is beyond me.
Each Walmart costs the government almost $1 million because they pay their workers low wages and they qualify for social programs.
Any state that is suffering from not having enough money should kick Walmart out. Yes I know that people will lose their jobs, but it's ridiculous how Walmart can get these breaks when they all are disgustingly rich!

This is from the article that I linked to. Here's another thing that's related to the Clintons. And remember that Hillary was on the board of directors. Can anyone tell me what they have done that has helped main stream Americans?

A lot of people were always rather suspicious during the Clinton years when the Arkansas-based Wal-Mart became so successful so fast, especially considering how much it benefited from all that cheap, bustling trade with China. But it may be surprising to find out that the retail giant also benefits greatly from more than 260 different grants from multiple states totaling nearly $150 million. With that kind of money, it's no wonder they can manage to sell anything and everything in their stores.

A

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg

They only need to pass living wage laws like Seattle. And make the laws applicable to part-time workers also. Maybe make the part-time part only if part-time workers exceed say 10% of the work force or some hard number per corporate entity (not per location). Give the truly small business a break to hire a kid after school but not for mega-corporations to evade fair labor laws by keeping regular workers' hours down.

Not hard to do at all, unless the corporations own you, body and what's left of your soul, like HRC.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.