Trump Reportedly Floated 44% Top Personal Income Tax Rate
- 6 years ago
President Trump reportedly wanted to increase the income tax percentage applied to the nation’s wealthiest individuals.
President Trump reportedly floated increasing the income tax percentage applied to the nation's wealthiest individuals, notes Business Insider. In his just-released book, 'Fear: Trump in the White House,' famed journalist Bob Woodward reports that the suggestion was made during a conversation between the president and then-National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn. Trump is said to have proposed lowering the corporate tax rate from 35% to 15% and increasing the top individual rate to 44%, up from 39.6%. "Sir, you can't take the top rate up. You just can't," Cohn reportedly said. Woodward writes that when Trump asked why, Cohn replied, "You're a Republican," and noted the president would "get absolutely destroyed" if he did such a thing. Trump has been working to discredit both Woodward and the book since the Washington Post first published excerpts on September 4. That day, he tweeted, "The Woodward book has already been refuted and discredited by General (Secretary of Defense) James Mattis and General (Chief of Staff) John Kelly."
"Their quotes were made up frauds, a con on the public. Likewise other stories and quotes. Woodward is a Dem operative? Notice timing?" the president also wrote. Such statements continued throughout that week and into the next. "The Woodward book is a Joke - just another assault against me, in a barrage of assaults, using now disproven unnamed and anonymous sources," Trump tweeted on Monday. "Many have already come forward to say the quotes by them, like the book, are fiction. Dems can't stand losing. I'll write the real book!"
President Trump reportedly floated increasing the income tax percentage applied to the nation's wealthiest individuals, notes Business Insider. In his just-released book, 'Fear: Trump in the White House,' famed journalist Bob Woodward reports that the suggestion was made during a conversation between the president and then-National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn. Trump is said to have proposed lowering the corporate tax rate from 35% to 15% and increasing the top individual rate to 44%, up from 39.6%. "Sir, you can't take the top rate up. You just can't," Cohn reportedly said. Woodward writes that when Trump asked why, Cohn replied, "You're a Republican," and noted the president would "get absolutely destroyed" if he did such a thing. Trump has been working to discredit both Woodward and the book since the Washington Post first published excerpts on September 4. That day, he tweeted, "The Woodward book has already been refuted and discredited by General (Secretary of Defense) James Mattis and General (Chief of Staff) John Kelly."
"Their quotes were made up frauds, a con on the public. Likewise other stories and quotes. Woodward is a Dem operative? Notice timing?" the president also wrote. Such statements continued throughout that week and into the next. "The Woodward book is a Joke - just another assault against me, in a barrage of assaults, using now disproven unnamed and anonymous sources," Trump tweeted on Monday. "Many have already come forward to say the quotes by them, like the book, are fiction. Dems can't stand losing. I'll write the real book!"