Trump con­sid­er­ing cor­po­rate tax hike to pay for ‘big, beau­ti­ful’ tax reform pack­age

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Trump considering corporate tax hike to pay for ‘big, beautiful’ tax reform package

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump is con­sid­er­ing a pro­pos­al put for­ward by some Repub­li­cans to raise the cor­po­rate tax rate to off­set tril­lions of dol­lars in oth­er tax cuts pro­posed by the White House, which would break from his 2024 cam­paign plat­form.

Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act extend­ed tax cuts to more than 60% of all Amer­i­can fil­ers and low­ered the cor­po­rate tax rate from 35% to 21%. The indi­vid­ual pro­vi­sions includ­ed in TCJA will expire at the end of this year with­out Con­gres­sion­al action. How­ev­er, the cor­po­rate tax amend­ment was made per­ma­nent, and the pres­i­dent repeat­ed­ly float­ed low­er­ing it again to 15% while cam­paign­ing last year.

White House press sec­re­tary Karo­line Leav­itt con­firmed to the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er on Tues­day that Trump has not decid­ed if he sup­ports a cor­po­rate tax hike to pay for the tril­lion-dol­lar bur­den his new pro­posed tax cuts would place on the fed­er­al bud­get.

“Look, I’ve seen this idea pro­posed. I’ve heard this idea dis­cussed, but I don’t believe the pres­i­dent has made a deter­mi­na­tion on whether he sup­ports or not,” she said dur­ing Tuesday’s press brief­ing.

After final­ly approv­ing a bud­getary frame­work last week, con­gres­sion­al Repub­li­cans are now try­ing to final­ize leg­is­la­tion that com­bines the president’s pri­or­i­ties on immi­gra­tion, slash­ing fed­er­al spend­ing, and reform­ing the tax code. Sen­ate Repub­li­cans have voiced sup­port for address­ing the president’s pri­or­i­ties in two sep­a­rate pieces of leg­is­la­tion, while the pres­i­dent has urged Con­gress to pass “one big, beau­ti­ful bill.”

The non­par­ti­san Tax Foun­da­tion esti­mat­ed that Trump’s ask, both the TCJA exten­sion and the president’s pro­pos­als to elim­i­nate tax­es on tips, Social Secu­ri­ty, and more, would cost between $1.5 and $5.3 tril­lion over the next decade.

Fis­cal hawks in the House backed off their oppo­si­tion to the bud­get res­o­lu­tion last week after secur­ing assur­ances from Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader John Thune (R‑SD), Trump, and House Speak­er Mike John­son (R‑LA) to pro­duce sig­nif­i­cant­ly more than $1.5 tril­lion in spend­ing cuts to off­set the new tax cuts. Repub­li­can lead­er­ship main­tains that extend­ing TCJA, a com­mit­ment of more than $4 tril­lion, would effec­tive­ly cost noth­ing as it sim­ply main­tains the sta­tus quo of the tax code.

How­ev­er, Sen. Rick Scott (R‑FL), chair­man of the Nation­al Repub­li­can Sen­a­to­r­i­al Com­mit­tee and a mem­ber of the Sen­ate Com­mit­tee on Bud­get, has open­ly float­ed rais­ing the cor­po­rate tax rate as a deficit off­set. His office declined to com­ment Tues­day after­noon.

Axios report­ed in March that the pres­i­dent is also con­sid­er­ing an income tax increase for the Unit­ed States’s top earn­ers.

The TCJA indi­vid­ual pro­vi­sions that Trump hopes Con­gress can extend expire at the end of 2025. The Tax Foun­da­tion esti­mat­ed that if they expire, 62% of fil­ers will see their tax­es increase the fol­low­ing year.

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You can watch Leavitt’s brief­ing in full below.