WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the Republican plan to overhaul the tax code (all times local):
11:21 a.m.
President Donald Trump has two red lines that he refuses to cross on overhauling taxes: the corporate rate must be cut to 20 percent and the savings must go to the middle class.
Gary Cohn, the president’s top economics aide, says any overhaul signed by the president needs to include these two elements.
Trump had initially pushed for cutting the 39.6 percent corporate tax rate to 15 percent.
The administration says that the benefits of any tax cut will not favor the wealthy, with Cohn saying that an additional tax bracket could be added to levy taxes on the top one percent of earners if needed.
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11:20 a.m.
The Senate’s top Democrat is blasting a new tax cut plan backed by President Donald Trump as a giveaway to the rich.
Sen. Chuck Schumer says Trump’s plan only gives “crumbs” to the middle class, while top-bracket earners making more than a half-million dollars a year would reap a windfall.
The New York Democrat also blasted the plan for actually increasing the bottom tax rate from 10 percent to 12 percent, calling it a “punch to the gut of working Americans.”
Schumer said the plan is little more than an “across-the-board tax cut for America’s millionaires and billionaires.”
The plan, to be officially released Wednesday afternoon, is the top item on Washington’s agenda after the GOP failure to repeal the Obama health care law.
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9:53 a.m.
A new Republican blueprint for overhauling the U.S. tax code employs the themes of economic populism that President Donald Trump trumpeted during the presidential campaign to win support from working-class voters.
A copy of the plan to be released later Wednesday says, “Too many in our country are shut out of the dynamism of the U.S. economy.” That’s led to what the plans says is “the justifiable feeling that the system is rigged against hardworking Americans.”
The plan, obtained by The Associated Press, says the Trump administration and Congress “will work together to produce tax reform that will put America first.”
The GOP plan for the first major rewrite of the U.S. tax code in 30 years also says corporations will be stopped from shipping jobs and capital overseas.
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9:20 a.m.
President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are proposing a tax plan that they say will be simple and fair.
In a document obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday, they outline a blueprint for almost doubling the standard deduction for married taxpayers filing jointly to $24,000, and $12,000 for individuals.
The plan calls for cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. The GOP proposal also calls for reducing the number of tax brackets from seven to three with a surcharge on the wealthiest Americans.
The plan also leaves intact the deduction for mortgage interest and charitable deductions.
The White House and Republicans plan a formal roll out later Wednesday.
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4:26 a.m.
President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are rolling out a sweeping plan to cut taxes for individuals and corporations, simplify the tax system, and likely double the standard deduction used by most Americans.
Months in the making, the plan meets a political imperative for Republicans to deliver an overhaul of the U.S. tax code after the failure of the health care repeal.
The public reveal of the plan was set for Wednesday. The day before, details emerged on Capitol Hill while Trump personally appealed to House Republicans and Democrats at the White House to get behind his proposal.
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