by Amy Hanauer, courtesy of commondreams.org –
The Harris campaign seems eager to tax the rich and corporations while Trump vows to preserve and expand tax cuts for the wealthiest and says little about how to pay for that.
Harris endorses multiple proposals to generate revenue from the richest people and the biggest corporations and deliver a middle-class tax cut—with the former paying for the latter. Trump would cut some middle-class taxes but promotes a new tariff on imports that would hike the price of nearly everything Americans purchase and, doubling down on past practice, he’d slash taxes for millionaires and corporations. He hasn’t identified a single business or billionaire that should pay more.
When Trump and congressional Republicans passed the 2017 tax law, they made massive tax cuts for corporations permanent but set the individual cuts, which were heavily skewed to the extremely wealthy, to expire at the end of 2025. This means taxes are on next year’s policy agenda in a way that rarely comes along. The approaches articulated by the campaigns would pull the nation in profoundly different directions.
Trump Proposals
Trump says he would again slash corporate tax rates, keep all corporate cuts from the 2017 tax law, extend 2017’s expiring cuts for everyone including the uber-wealthy, and impose large tariffs that fall on everyone who spends money on anything.
Trump’s tariff proposals—basically a 60% taxes on imports from China and 20% on all other imports—would cost the typical American household over $2,600 a year, according to economist Kim Clausing. Earlier analysis of a previously-discussed 10% worldwide tariff shows an increase in inflation resulting from the plan, which would also generate $2.8 trillion in revenue over the next decade, raised from consumers.
Much of that revenue would go to corporations. When lawmakers cut the corporate…
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