Mnuchin, though, indicated that the Treasury Department “can’t force” companies to to take the deferral and that some companies may choose to opt out.
“We’re going to create a level of certainty for small businesses who want to do this,” he said.
Congress Vital
Trump is reliant on Congress to forgive the deferred tax payments, but that could be a tough sell for lawmakers who have repeatedly dismissed his requests for a payroll tax cut, said Joe Bishop-Henchman, the vice president of policy and litigation at the National Taxpayers Union Foundation.
“He’s been pretty insistent on that for some time now, and Congress hasn’t addressed it,” he said.
Trump on Monday also said he’d soon release a middle-income tax cut proposal. But that would need Congress to act, so any plan would be more a campaign pledge than something that could take effect in the coming months.
Polls have indicated that voters aren’t inclined to trust the president. A Quinnipiac University poll released last month found that 31% of registered voters said he was honest, with more than double that -- 66% -- saying he wasn’t.
‘Significant Expense’
His penchant for big ideas that never quite come to pass could hurt him as voters find that promised benefits don’t materialize in their bank accounts. Businesses are already worried that Trump’s payroll order could create a series of administrative problems, but not actually deliver any economic boost.
“If employees are burdened with deferred payroll taxes later, then we haven’t provided relief, we have postponed the tax payment at best, all at a significant expense to employers,” Alice Jacobsohn, the Director of Government Relations for the American Payroll Association, said in a statement.
Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, estimates that the executive orders would have “at best” marginal economic benefits, falling short of pledges to provide relief to jobless workers and create jobs through tax cuts.
“The EOs are much ado about nothing,” Zandi said in an email. “Aside from the waiving of interest payments on student loans through the end of the year, which is important for student loan borrowers but has little macroeconomic benefit, the EOs will not be implemented, at least not in the foreseeable future.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.