Posted on 09/28/2015 7:43:39 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Donald Trump is expected to release his tax plan at some point today, but he let 60 Minutes in on a little sneak peak. There’s good news and bad news on the plan. Here’s the good news first.
Donald Trump: I know. I know. I will say this, there will be a large segment of our country that will have a zero rate, a zero rate. And that’s something I haven’t told anybody.
Scott Pelley: You’re talking about–
Donald Trump: We’re talking about people in the low-income brackets that are supposed to be paying taxes, many of them don’t anyway.
Scott Pelley: You’re talking about making part of the population exempt from income tax?
Donald Trump: That is correct.
Scott Pelley: You’re talking about cutting corporate income taxes?
Donald Trump: That is correct.
So, so far so good because it lowers some tax rates to zero and cuts the corporate tax rate. But then Trump goes into complete Bernie Sanders land by saying he wants to raise taxes on the rich (emphasis mine)!
Scott Pelley: Who are you going to raise taxes on?
Donald Trump: If you look at actually raise, some very wealthy are going to be raised. Some people that are getting unfair deductions are going to be raised. But overall it’s going to be a tremendous incentive to grow the economy and we’re going to take in the same or more money. And I think we’re going to have something that’s going to be spectacular.
Scott Pelley: But Republicans don’t raise taxes.
Donald Trump: Well, we’re not raising taxes.
It’s so amusing how he says, “we’re not raising taxes” after saying he was going to raise taxes on some of the very wealthy. But it’ll be interesting to see just how high the tax rates for the wealthy will be and how Trump plans to off-set the lost revenue on the middle class. It’s not a bad thing to lower taxes on any class, however any tax cuts have to be off-set by spending cuts. It’s the nature of the beast, which both Republican and Democrats fail to realize over and over and over again. By focusing on hitting upper income wage earners, it could end up hurting more than it helps. Folks like Bernie Sanders like to cite the fact there was a 91% tax rate on the rich in 1954. But Amity Shlaes wrote in Bloomberg in 2013 how that wasn’t quite true.
Official rates matter, but so do effective rates, the percent of income that people actually pay in tax. The Internal Revenue Service reckoned that the effective rate of tax in 1954 for top earners was actually 70 percent.
Or lower. Marc Linder, a law professor at the University of Iowa, has shown that a more comprehensive interpretation of income that includes capital gains suggests the real effective tax rate for millionaires was 49 percent in 1953. The effective rate dropped throughout the decade, reaching 31 percent by 1960. That 31 percent is just slightly higher than the 29 percent level a Congressional Budget Office report figures the average effective tax for the top quintile will be in 2014. And that number for 2014 doesn’t include taxes in Obama’s health-care law.
A second fantasy about the 1950s is that government soaked the rich. Joseph Thorndike and Martin Sullivan in Tax Notes magazine took a look at the tax distribution of the decade. They found that those earning more than $100,000 paid less than 5 percent of the taxes collected in the U.S., a far smaller share than the wealthiest shoulder today.
Here’s the other concern regarding Trump’s tax plan: the rich are already being soaked pretty hard as it is. Take a look at the 2015 tax rates set by the IRS.
To put it in real numbers, single people who make a million dollars in a year, actually make $662K, while married couples filing jointly who make a million a year, actually make $673K. Married couples filing separately make $652K. That’s only calculating federal tax and has nothing to do with the states which have income tax as well. The only other candidate, at this moment, who is proposing a tax hike is Bernie Sanders. Here’s his plan.
Trump’s plan may be less than Sanders, but that still doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. He still has to explain how much his plan to take care of the “lower 25%” on health care will cost (emphasis mine).
Donald Trump: There’s many different ways, by the way. Everybody’s got to be covered. This is an un-Republican thing for me to say because a lot of times they say, “No, no, the lower 25 percent that can’t afford private. But–”
Scott Pelley: Universal health care.
Donald Trump: I am going to take care of everybody. I don’t care if it costs me votes or not. Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now.
Scott Pelley: The uninsured person is going to be taken care of. How? How?
Donald Trump: They’re going to be taken care of. I would make a deal with existing hospitals to take care of people. And, you know what, if this is probably–
Scott Pelley: Make a deal? Who pays for it?
Donald Trump: –the government’s gonna pay for it. But we’re going to save so much money on the other side. But for the most it’s going to be a private plan and people are going to be able to go out and negotiate great plans with lots of different competition with lots of competitors with great companies and they can have their doctors, they can have plans, they can have everything.
For those keeping score at home, that’s single-payer health care, the thing Nancy Pelosi pushed last year. I’m a little curious how “the base” would react if say Ted Cruz or Ben Carson proposed the tax hike and single-payer. If it were Jeb Bush, “the base” would probably be running for the pitchforks and torches quicker than you can say “No more Bushes!” It just doesn’t seem logical for them to say, “Damn the GOP Establishment for wanting this!” but thinking it’s just fine and dandy for Trump to want it. The flat tax plans proposed by Ben Carson (10%), or Rand Paul (14.5%) are more palatable, even if I personally think they’re still too high. The Fair Tax idea of a 23% sales tax is still too high for my own personal preference, but I’m not against discussing a lower rate if it means no more income tax. There are just too many questions on how Trump’s “preview” of his tax proposal will actually help the U.S. more than it will hurt. He could surprise me in a good way, but I’m not betting on it.
Eliminating exemptions for the evil elites is a worthy goal. Not the 1% or the 0.01% or the 0.001%. It’s the Lucifer loving masterminds that have bought all the politicians and run the world’s governments and banks. It’s these same masterminds that should be in jail for illegal financial activities, insider/secret deals, and outright theft via bail-ins and bail-outs.
If that’s what Trump means, OK. But who really knows.
Salem employs other Trump haters like Erik , Hewitt, Medved , Hamm ,.....
Pretty much another DC fat cat front grouo .
Another stupid headline by HotAir.
It’s a huge cut in taxes even for the rich.
Yes its a yuge tax cut. I’m OK with everything except I’m sorry if you and the wife are making $49,900 per year you can pay something. Same as if you are making $25,000. Maybe 3%-5%. Letting 50% of the working public out of taxes is a poor idea. Unless you are really destitute you should have some skin in the game even if its $500 per year.
I never begrudge anyone who pays less in taxes. All taxes in Trump’s plan went down for everyone. “The skin in the game” - I don’t buy it. We used that against Dem, but Dems do not like to cut any ones taxes poor or the rich. The money people save in taxes gets spent that spurs on economic growth, which generates more taxes for government since the tax base enlarges.
I believe that if you have some skin in the game even if its minimal its a psychological plus.
Furthermore, Trump plans to cut much government waste that we complain about all the time. This guy will do it instead of paying lip service like what we have gotten from politicians. Trump has set a target for 20% which is pretty good reduction. Reducing the government fat under the skin. I suspect he’d like to cut even more.
Trump could always put in a tax line for people who want to give more to government if it makes them feel better. *Grin*
Yes I am firmly convinced Trump will cut waste in spending. No more $200 toilet seats and that kind of garbage. There is so much waste and fraud in Medicare its insane.
Looks like Hotair has its Anti Trump soldiers on this site.
I heard the interview... did you? This is pretty much the Jack Kemp plan... and we took in a lot of money under that.
Interesting how Rush will spin this of if he jumps off the Trump train.
Unlike you Rush is waiting to read it more deeply, but he isn't trashing it because it lowers tax rates across the board for everyone except some of the hedge fund guys, the top 1% of the top 1%. Cry me a river.
It would be silly to tax a couple $5,000 for making $50,001/year while taxing zero for making one dollar less.
but 50% of what I make is a lot of f#$king money to me. That is roughly the tax bite I am paying in total.
Strange that you show bring that up since his top rate is 25% And you get to keep all or most all of your current deductions.
Personally I didn’t get that but I did miss the audio portion of the first several minutes and had to reload the streaming so I don’t know. My take was that at $50,000 or above you pay whatever percentage on the whole thing. Maybe I didn’t interpret it properly.
If they are forced to produce goods within the U.S. then there will be NO tariff on there product.
Someone else already mentioned "INCENTIVES."
Trump's PLAN could easily CHANGE everything to the benefit of Americans.
That is what Reagan once was, but be said he was wrong and changed his ways.
Hey, how else to you pay for a strong military, which is about all they should do with our money, or give it back to the states.
Plus you pay down this debt.
In short, we’re taxed to hell. The less tax the better, but everybody should pay something.
I’m looking at the comments from the people posting. Don’t sound pro Trump to me.
There was a time not so long ago when it was said what’s good for the wealthy is good for the people because poor people don’t provide jobs. Oh, and the wealth envy thing too.
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