Trump Planning Another Huge Tax Cut for His Donors
During his presidency, Donald Trump slashed the corporate tax rate from 28 percent to 21 percent. If he’s elected again this year, Trump intends to further cut the corporate tax rate to 15 percent, according to new reporting in Bloomberg.
The 2017 Trump tax law is already an epic financial boondoggle, one that was designed to primarily benefit the wealthy. At the time of its passage, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center projected that nearly two thirds of the tax cuts under the law would flow to the top 20 percent of American households — and nearly half would flow to the top 5 percent.
The law has significantly expanded the U.S. budget deficit, and helped workers far less than Republicans promised.
Only a month ago, Trump pitched top business CEOs on a 20 percent corporate tax rate. He recently told Bloomberg: “I would like to get it down to 15.” If this latest proposal were enacted, Trump would be responsible for cutting the U.S. corporate tax rate nearly in half.
According to an article by the Center for American Progress Action, a liberal advocacy group, “cutting the corporate income tax rate from 21 percent to 15 percent would give Fortune 100 corporations a combined tax giveaway worth nearly $50 billion.” That’s more than all federal K-12 education spending, per the group.
Trump’s corporate tax cut pledge is one of many policy changes he has been promising to prospective donors.
In May, Trump reportedly warned donors that Biden would allow his 2017 tax law to expire. “The tax cuts all expire for wealthy and poor and middle-income and everything else,” Trump said, according to The Washington Post.
In recent days, some of the world’s wealthiest have rallied around Trump, coincidentally at the same time that his party is attempting to sell the working class on hollow economic populism — and resentment against immigrants — at the Republican National Convention.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the richest person on Earth, has reportedly pledged to donate $45 million per month to a pro-Trump super PAC.
Trump is also scoring big support from Silicon Valley donors — including major cryptocurrency investors like the Winklevoss twins and executives at Andreessen Horowitz — after pledging to halt scrutiny of the industry if he is elected.