This is a purely political story, though it might look like an important policy or news story. It isn't.<p>Every administration proposes a tax plan. But, of course, tax policy is set by Congress. The President is (usually) the ostensible leader of the party, and this President's party controls both houses of Congress, but by both rule and statute they'll need a filibuster-proof majority to pass most of these policies --- and, because the "popular" parts of this proposal will balloon the deficit, they probably won't get unanimous support from their own party.<p>This is all academic anyways. It seems somewhat traditional for the administration to propose a fairytale tax plan, and traditional for that proposal not to have much impact on policy.
Not an American but this is interesting....<p>> The estate tax and the alternative minimum tax, which Mr. Trump has railed against for years, would be repealed under his plan.<p>The AMT is one of the largest issues for people calling their stock options on non liquid companies.<p>> Mr. Mnuchin offered few specifics about the blueprint, other than confirming that its centerpiece will be a 15 percent business tax rate<p>This is also very interesting, and I think, its the core of Trump's tax plan. Instead of giving corporations a tax holiday to bring back offshore money, just lower the tax rate to create a permanent tax holiday.<p>If the numbers are to be believed ( 250 Billion for Apple alone) then this could add alot of money to the US economy over the next few years. Look for a wave of US company to US company acquisitions to spring up if this comes to fruition.<p>Event driven hedge funds are going to have a bonanza with this!<p>It might even be enough to make the economy jump going into the next election cycle.
Repealing the estate tax? The tax instituted by our founding fathers, specifically as a safeguard against the creation of an aristocratic class? A tax that ONLY affects people with more than 5 million at time of death?<p>For shame.
Raising the standard deduction is nice.<p>Ideally I'd like to see it drastically raised, like no tax on each person's first $30k. I'm surprised the democrats have never tried to push a policy like this, its the type of policy that would get support from many republican voters.
I wouldn't mind paying less in taxes.<p>BUT WHAT ABOUT THE DEFICIT???<p>The deficit hasn't mattered to anyone before now, esp not in the last 8 years. Can't get any worse than it has been already for years now.
Just because the tax rate is lowered doesn't mean companies will repatriate their money here. I think we need a law that penalizes companies for offshoring their money. If you want to be an American company, headquartered in America, then it should cost companies like Apple to offshore that money. Carrots and sticks should be used to bring that money back, but a lower corporate tax rate is a start, but not the solution.
If I'm reading this right, I could make a partnership (LLC or S-corp) and use it for normal activities, investment, consulting, etc., and I'd pay 15% <i>total</i>. This is nuts. Heck, Uber and Lyft drivers could set up as passthroughs and save a bunch. This is nuts.<p>For the record: I think slashing the corporate rate is a good idea, but only if long-term capital gains are taxed high enough that the overall rate is reasonable.