Trump on Taxes

Did Trump already reveal his tax plan? Financial proposal published in book 4 years ago, by Aaron Klein, 9/19/15 

During the second Republican presidential debate last Wednesday, Donald Trump teased the tax plan he says he will be releasing in about two weeks, calling it a “major reduction for the middle class.”

“What I’d like to do, and I’ll be putting in the plan in about two weeks, and I think people are going to like it, it’s a major reduction in taxes,” he said. “It’s a major reduction for the middle class. The hedge fund guys won’t like me as much as they like me right now. I know them all, but they’ll pay more.”

 “I know people that are making a tremendous amount of money and paying virtually no tax, and I think it’s unfair,” he said.

One week earlier, on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” Trump said of his coming tax blueprint: “We have an amazing tax plan … We’re going to be reducing taxes for the middle class, but for the hedge fund guys, they’re going to be paying up.”

While Trump has yet to unveil his plan, largely ignored by media is that in his 2011 book, “Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again,” he laid out a plan to completely transform the tax code with a uniform proposal for all Americans to pay lower taxes.

Trump’s revenue prescription, which he labeled his 1-5-10-15 income tax plan in the book four years ago, could form the basis for his campaign’s platform on the issue.

In the book, Trump wrote that his plan is so simple, it could eliminate the need for accountants and tax preparers, which he referenced during last week’s debate when he complained that someone making $50,000 a year “has to hire H&R Block to do the – because it’s so complicated.”

He wrote in 2011: “Imagine your paycheck was 40 percent higher than it currently is. What could you do with 40 percent more wealth? How many jobs and opportunities for others could you create?

“The longer you really think about it the madder you will get,” he wrote, “especially when you consider the waste, fraud, and abuse the federal government traffics in as it inflicts its self-defeating policies on hard-working Americans.”

Here’s Trump’s proposed income-tax plan as outlined in his 2011 book:

• Those making up to $30,000 will pay 1 percent.

• Income from $30,000 to $100,000 is assessed a flat 5 percent tax.

• $100,000 to $1 million income will be taxed at 10 percent.

• $1 million or above will be taxed 15 percent.
  “It’s clear and fair,” wrote Trump in the book. “Best of all, it can be filled out on the back of a postcard and will save Americans big bucks on accountants and massive amounts of time wasted attempting to decipher the tax code.”
  In the book, Trump offered a five-point economic plan “that encourages growth, savings, and investment.”
  Here is a WND summary of his five points:
  1. Abolish the estate or “death” tax
  “It’s immoral for the government to tax you after you’re dead,” he wrote, “to seize a portion of your money and property that you spent your life building up, and on which you already paid taxes. Your children deserve your estate, not the federal government.”
  In April, Obama proposed changes to the estate tax that critics say could bring the death tax to an effective rate of 57 percent. Adding in state inheritance taxes, the rate would average 65 percent but could go as high as 67 percent, according to a Heritage Foundation analysis.
  Writing in 2011, when Obama proposed moving the death tax to an effective 45 percent, Trump cited a study by former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who found that the 45 percent rate “is a proven jobs killer, because it will strip $1.6 trillion of small business capital out of the hands of job creators.”
  Holtz-Eakin predicted a loss of 1.5 million new jobs.
  2. Lower tax rates on capital gains and dividends
  Trump labeled these as “two more taxes that are proven jobs and investment killers.”
  “Capitalism requires capital,” he explained. “When government robs capital from investors, it takes away the money that creates jobs – real private sector jobs that contribute to the health of our economy.”
  3. Lowering the U.S. corporate tax rate from 39 percent to zero to help create jobs
  4. Punish companies that outsource jobs overseas with a 20 percent tax hike
  The billionaire also suggested lowering to zero the tax rate for companies that outsourced overseas but decided to return to the U.S.
  “Bottom line: hire American workers and you win. Send jobs overseas, and you may be fine, but you will pay a tax,” he wrote.
  5. The 1-5-10-15 income tax plan for all Americans
   
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  http://www.wnd.com/2015/09/did-trump-already-reveal-his-tax-plan/