On the campaign trail, Donald Trump promised the biggest tax cuts since the Reagan era and proposed reforms that would drastically increase our country’s already extreme levels of inequality. Now theRepublican-controlled Congress is considering ramming through tax reforms in the first half of 2017, using a “fast-pass” process called reconciliation that requires just 51 votes in the senate. If Trump’s plan becomes the blueprint for this reform, these would be the six worst features.
2. Slashes corporate tax rates by nearly 60 percent—from 35 percent to 15 percent — losing $2.6 trillion over 10 years. Corporations are already dodging their fair share of taxes at a time of record profits. Only $1 out of $9 of federal revenue now comes from corporate taxes. Sixty-five years ago, it was $1 out of every $3.1. Gives huge tax breaks to the rich and corporations, loses $6.2 trillion over 10 years, and if paid for will require deep cuts to domestic services. Three-quarters of lost revenues are from corporate and business tax breaks largely benefiting the rich. The top 0.1 percent of households, which includes Trump’s, will get an annual tax cut of about $1.1 million each. Nearly half (47 percent) of the tax cuts will go to the top 1 percent of households; each one will get an average tax break of nearly $215,000 a year. The bottom 20 percent will get a tax cut of $110. Trump’s plan will increase the deficit by $7 trillion, unless massive cuts are made to benefits and services that working Americans depend on.
3. Gives multinational corporations with profits stashed offshore a tax cut of more than $550 billion. Big American corporations hold $2.5 trillion in earnings offshore on which they owe more than $700 billion in U.S. taxes. Trump would cut the tax rate on those offshore profits from 35 percent to just 10 percent on cash and only 4 percent on other assets, raising less than $150 billion. This would give tax-dodging multinational corporations an undeserved tax break of more than half a trillion dollars.