After President Trump announced he would cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 15%, the rocket scientists at The Washington Post pontificated on whether his policies would benefit his business empire. Both Drew Harwell and Jonathan O’Connell opined that the Trump Organization, the conglomerate group that operates Trump’s real estate and licensing companies, would benefit from reducing the corporate tax rate.
The proposed pass-through rate cut could make a big impact on the Trump company’s bottom line. Pass-through businesses do not pay corporate taxes; instead, that income passes through to the owner’s personal income taxes, skipping the corporate-tax rate altogether.
Both Harwell and O’Connell also talked about Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns. They estimated how much money the Trump Organization would save through the Form 1040 from 2005 that Rachel Maddow released unceremoniously on her show last month.
One clue to how much Trump’s private company could save from this cut comes from his 2005 tax return. The return shows that Trump filed for $42 million in business income and $67 million in income from partnerships, S-corporations, trusts and other entities. The proposed pass-through tax cut could have lowered Trump’s tax obligation by tens of millions of dollars in that year alone.
While the article attempts to put the tax reform proposals in perspective, this article still remains fixated on the conspiracy that Trump is attempting to lower individual and corporate tax rates for all Americans just to benefit himself. Some individuals found that suggestion absurd.
Do these fools really think @realDonaldTrump wants to change the whole nation’s tax code just to lower his own taxes? https://t.co/T3PA45kBQp
— Dinesh D’Souza (@DineshDSouza) April 27, 2017
Trump ran his presidential campaign calling to decrease tax burdens on the American people; he is moving forward on that promise. Nevertheless, the big government Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media will continue to find reasons to suggest that Trump’s policies arise from self-interest rather than a fundamental belief that increased tax burdens limit an individual’s economic liberty to use their money without governmental constraints. As Aaron Bandler of The Daily Wire wrote earlier today, tax cuts benefit the middle class and it ultimately helps the economy in the long-run.