Donald Trump Unveils Plan That Would Lower Taxes For Millions
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump is calling for an overhaul of the tax code that would eliminate income taxes for millions of Americans, while lowering them for the highest-income earners and business.
PHOTO GALLERY: Trump Unveils Tax Plan
The plan unveiled Monday would eliminate federal income taxes on individuals earning less than $25,000 and married couples earning less than $50,000.
"It will provide major tax relief for middle-income and for most other Americans," Trump said. "There will be a major tax reduction. It'll simplify the tax code. It'll grow the American economy."
But the plan would also benefit businesses and the rich. It would lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent and lower the highest income tax rate from 39.6 percent to 25 percent.
Donald Trump Unveils Plan That Would Lower Taxes For Millions
Trump said the plan would also impact the wealthy by reducing or eliminating most deductions and loopholes.
"In other words, it's going to cost me a fortune,'' he said at a news conference at his Trump Tower skyscraper in Manhattan.
Trump wants to eliminate the so-called "carried interest loophole'' that allows managers of hedge funds and private equity firms to pay a lower tax rate than most individuals.
The billionaire real estate mogul says the country would pay for the tax cuts through a combination of eliminating deductions and loopholes. He also wants to allow corporations to bring money held in overseas accounts back to the United States after paying a one-time tax of 10 percent.
In sum, he says, the changes he wants to enact would not add to the annual federal budget deficit or the national debt.
"We have an amazing code,'' Trump said of his tax system. "It will be simple. It will be easy. It will be fair.''
Trump estimated that his plan would lead the economy to grow at least 3 percent a year, and as much as 5 or 6 percent.
"It'll simplify the tax code, it will grow the American economy in a level that it hasn't seen in decades," he said.
Speaking in an interview on CBS's "60 Minutes'' on Sunday, Trump called the plan "a substantial reduction for the middle-income people.''
The tax plan is the third major policy proposal from Trump, who has also outlined plans for immigration and guns. He has been criticized for failing to unveil specific policy proposals as he's risen in early preference polling.
But, as CBS2's Dick Brennan reported, critics said the numbers don't add up. They claim the plan does more to cut taxes for the rich.
"I think I would look at it and then I would throw it in the basket," Rep. Sander Levin (D-Michigan) said.
Trump said scaling back deductions will help pay for the plan. He also proposed a one-time mandatory 10 percent tax on overseas profits of U.S. corporations.
The campaign trail sniping also continued on Monday. Marco Rubio was asked on a radio show what he thought of Trump.
"I'm not interested in the back and forth and be part of his freak show," Rubio said, " He had a speech in South Carolina to an empty crowd, he got booed on Friday at that Bally Voters Summit. His poll numbers are taking a beating, and he was embarrassed on national television in a debate, by Carly Fiorina and others."
Trump fired back.
"Senator Rubio is a lightweight, we all know that he wouldn't be able to do this, he wouldn't know a trade deal from any other deal," Trump said.
In his interview with "60 Minutes," Trump also said he wouldn't accept the North American Free Trade Agreement.
"Every agreement has an end," he said. "Every agreement has to be fair. Every agreement has a defraud clause. We're being defrauded by all these countries."
He said he would either renegotiate the agreement or break it.
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