Billionaire Donald Trump, current GOP primary frontrunner, laid out the beginnings of his tax plan for if he’s elected President of the United States on 60 Minutes on CBS News with Scott Pelley on Sunday evening.
“It’s a substantial reduction for the middle-income people,” Trump said when asked about his tax plan. “Because our middle class, Scott, is being absolutely decimated. It will be a corporate also reduction, I think it’ll be a great incentive for corporations.”
When Pelley asked who Trump would raise taxes on, he replied that he would raise taxes on some of the very wealthy in America. This is an aberration from where most Republicans and Democrats have been caught in groupthink for some time. Both parties have long opposed any tax reform that shifts the burden of tax revenue from the middle and lower classes to the upper class. Technically, Trump’s plan would shift it so that lower and middle class families pay less and the people who have more money pay more.
“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,” Trump said. “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.”
Pelley protested: “But Republicans don’t raise taxes.”
Trump correctly noted that his plan isn’t a tax increase — it’s a shift of the tax burden, something the donor class certainly won’t like.
“Well, we’re not raising taxes,” Trump said.
“What kind of Republican are you?” Pelley followed up.
“I mean the only, well, I’m a pretty good Republican,” Trump replied. “But I will tell you this, I do have some differences. I don’t want to have certain people on Wall Street getting away with paying no tax.”
“You say you’re going to lower taxes on the middle class, what are we talking about?” Pelley asked in response.
“Well, we’re talking about numbers that will be announced over the next two days,” Trump said. “And they’ll be significant for the middle class.”
Trump, who will be holding a press conference in Trump Tower on Monday morning to discuss his forthcoming tax plan, gave some more details to Pelley in the interview after Pelley pressed him harder.
“There will be a large segment of our country that will have a zero rate, a zero rate,” Trump said.
“We’re talking about people in the low-income brackets that are supposed to be paying taxes, many of them don’t anyway,” he added.
When Pelley asked Trump if that means he’s “talking about making part of the population exempt from income tax,” Trump replied: “That is correct.”
“You’re talking about cutting corporate income taxes?” Pelley asked in another follow-up.
“That is correct,” Trump replied again.
Pelley asked how Trump would succeed in doing this with a $19 trillion federal debt, to which Trump explained that “we’re going to grow the economy so much” it will be able to pay for it.
“If the economy grows the way it should grow — if I bring jobs back from China, from Japan, from Mexico, from so many countries, everybody’s taking our jobs,” Trump said, then he will be able to pay for these tax cuts on the majority of Americans.
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