Donald Trump has portrayed himself as a different kind of Republican presidential candidate. His tax plan is mostly more of the same.
The billionaire front-runner for his party's presidential nomination has been promising to make “hedge fund guys” pay more by eliminating the carried-interest deduction, which taxes private equity and hedge fund profits at 23.8 percent. But Trump's plan also reduces the top income tax bracket on the wealthiest Americans to 25 percent from 39.6 percent, effectively minimizing the hike that the real estate celebrity has spent months promoting.
“It's going to cost me a fortune,” Trump, 69, said Monday during a news conference at the Trump Tower in New York.
Trump, who has been criticized by rivals as having a loose grip on policy, leans on many of the proposals that they have put out before him. Trump's plan would reduce the number of tax brackets to three from seven; former Florida Governor Jeb Bush suggested three (slightly higher) tax brackets earlier this month.
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio has proposed abolishing the alternative minimum tax and ending all deductions, save those on charitable giving and mortgage interest; Trump would do the same.
Trump said he'd cut the corporate tax rate to 15 percent; U.S. Senator Rand Paul has called for a 14.5 percent flat tax.
U.S. Senator John McCain, the party's nominee in 2008, has proposed taxing corporate cash held overseas at 8.75 percent, instead of the full 35 percent; Trump proposed a one-time rate of 10 percent to encourage the repatriation of an estimate $2.5 trillion.
"This is something, and I've been watching it for a long time, everybody agrees to," Trump said about repatriation holiday, adding that he plan would create "an amazing code."
Like his rivals, Trump also leans on projected growth to pay for the tax cuts. Bush's cuts would cost an estimated $3.4 trillion over a decade, with a net revenue loss of $1.2 trillion after projected economic growth. Rubio's plan to slash taxes on investments, wages, and business income would reduce collections by $1.7 trillion during the same time, while, like Bush, largely favoring the top 1 percent of Americans over the middle class.
Trump claimed his plan would be "fully paid for," but didn't provide his projections. During an interview on 60 Minutes on Sunday, Trump said his plan relied on economic growth to avoid adding to the nation's $18 trillion debt. On Monday, Trump said his plan would be paid for if the country makes "much better deals."