White House seeks route to cut taxes

WASHINGTON — White House officials have explored whether President Trump has the power to sidestep Congress and unilaterally cut a broad swath of taxes as the president looks for ways to inject fuel into a slumping economy, according to a senior administration official.

While such a move is not imminent, Trump’s advisers have sought legal guidance from White House lawyers about whether the president has the authority to eliminate certain taxes, including income and business taxes, without the approval of Congress.

The discussions about how much power the president can wield over tax policy come as Trump prepares to delay payroll taxes for some workers until the end of the year. But unlike that move, which simply defers what workers owe until some point in the future, the White House is discussing whether the president can actually eliminate taxes owed by businesses, workers and investors.

The legality of such a move is dubious, but Trump has not been shy about pushing the boundaries of his authority. The Constitution gives Congress the power to set tax policy, and lawmakers would most likely object to any attempt to bypass their authority. The executive branch does have wide latitude, however, to enact regulations regarding tax collection, and it can defer taxes, as it did with the payroll tax and with the threemonth delay of the traditional April 15 tax filing deadline.

“They clearly can delay pretty much anything for a year,” said Daniel Hemel, a tax law professor at the University of Chicago.

But Trump, who faces a tough reelection campaign amid a sputtering economy, has made clear that he wants to do much more than just delay taxes — and that another big tax cut will be a central part of his pitch for a second term. Getting such a tax cut through Congress would be tough, particularly if Democrats retain control of the House.

“We’re looking very seriously at a capital gains tax cut and also at an income tax cut for middleincome families,” Trump said at the White House on Monday evening. “We’re looking at expanding the tax cuts that we’ve already done, but specifically for middleincome families, and you’ll be hearing about that in the upcoming few weeks.”

Trump and his advisers have regularly considered unorthodox tax maneuvers that they believe would spur economic growth, including reducing the taxes that investors pay on profits earned from selling assets like stocks or bonds. Trump has long said he has the authority to reduce socalled capital gains taxes by indexing those profits to inflation, which would essentially reduce both the gains and the tax owed on the sale of assets.