Trump Proposes the Most Sweeping Tax Overhaul in Decades
- 7 years ago
Trump Proposes the Most Sweeping Tax Overhaul in Decades
On the individual side, the plan would collapse the tax brackets from seven to three,
with tax rates of 12 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent, the president said.
INDIANAPOLIS — President Trump on Wednesday began an ambitious push to slash taxes and salvage what remains of his embattled legislative agenda in Congress this year, proposing a politically challenging array of tax cuts for individuals and businesses
that would constitute the most sweeping changes to the federal tax code in decades.
“Tax reform will protect low-income and middle-income households, not the wealthy and well-connected,” Mr. Trump said, framing a proposal
that would affect hundreds of millions of Americans in terms of his own self-interest.
“If Senator Donnelly doesn’t approve it — because, you know, he’s on the other side — we will come here, we will
campaign against him like you wouldn’t believe,” Mr. Trump said as Mr. Donnelly looked on from the audience.
Mr. Trump, who has broken with precedent for modern American presidents by refusing to release his tax returns, insisted
that wealthy people like him would not benefit — an assertion that seemed improbable for a man who runs a family-owned real estate empire and whose children stand to inherit vast sums.
And Mr. Trump paired his scripted talk of bipartisanship with an impromptu threat to Senator Joe Donnelly, Democrat of Indiana, saying
he would personally work to defeat the senator’s re-election bid next year if he does not fall into line on the tax plan.
Provisions such as the alternative minimum tax and the estate tax, a levy on inherited wealth
that Mr. Trump has derided for years, would be gone under the Republican proposal.
On the individual side, the plan would collapse the tax brackets from seven to three,
with tax rates of 12 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent, the president said.
INDIANAPOLIS — President Trump on Wednesday began an ambitious push to slash taxes and salvage what remains of his embattled legislative agenda in Congress this year, proposing a politically challenging array of tax cuts for individuals and businesses
that would constitute the most sweeping changes to the federal tax code in decades.
“Tax reform will protect low-income and middle-income households, not the wealthy and well-connected,” Mr. Trump said, framing a proposal
that would affect hundreds of millions of Americans in terms of his own self-interest.
“If Senator Donnelly doesn’t approve it — because, you know, he’s on the other side — we will come here, we will
campaign against him like you wouldn’t believe,” Mr. Trump said as Mr. Donnelly looked on from the audience.
Mr. Trump, who has broken with precedent for modern American presidents by refusing to release his tax returns, insisted
that wealthy people like him would not benefit — an assertion that seemed improbable for a man who runs a family-owned real estate empire and whose children stand to inherit vast sums.
And Mr. Trump paired his scripted talk of bipartisanship with an impromptu threat to Senator Joe Donnelly, Democrat of Indiana, saying
he would personally work to defeat the senator’s re-election bid next year if he does not fall into line on the tax plan.
Provisions such as the alternative minimum tax and the estate tax, a levy on inherited wealth
that Mr. Trump has derided for years, would be gone under the Republican proposal.