Trump releases ‘ the biggest tax cut plan’ in US history

New plan aims to reduce corporate rate to 15%

US President Donald Trump released a tax plan on Wednesday that proposes to sharply slash business taxes and steeply discount the rate on corporate profits brought back into the US, officials said.

The blueprint, which also calls for the raising of standard deductions for individuals, is designed to be a guidepost for lawmakers in Congress, though it likely will fall short of the comprehensive restructuring long discussed by Republicans.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who is leading the Trump administration’s effort to craft a tax package that can pass Congress, described the plan as “the biggest tax cut” in US history and said he hoped it would attract broad support.

“There’s multiple ways of doing this and the president is determined that we will have tax reform,” he said at a breakfast forum in Washington.

Analysts did not expect the plan to include any proposals for raising new revenue, potentially adding billions of dollars to the federal deficit.

Though Republicans control both the US House of Representatives and Senate, some aspects of Trump’s proposals could be a difficult sell, especially for fiscal hawks in his own party.

Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, a longtime champion of a major tax restructuring, expressed optimism about the plan.

“We’ve seen a sneak preview. We like it a lot,” he told a gathering of lobbyists and lawyers. “It puts us on the same page. We’re in agreement on 80 percent and on the [ remaining] 20 percent we’re in the same ballpark.”

Trump’s plan will cut the income tax rate paid by public corporations to 15 percent from 35 percent and reduce the top tax rate by pass- through businesses, including many small partnerships and sole proprietorships, to 15 percent from 39.6 percent, Mnuchin said.

“We are committed that small business owner- operators will have the benefit of the business rate. What this is not going to be is a loophole to let rich people who should be paying higher rates pay 15 percent,” he said.

Trump will also propose a repatriation tax on offshore earnings along the lines of his campaign proposal for a 10 percent levy, versus the current 35 percent, a White House official said on Tuesday.