Mnuchin: Trump won’t release tax returns

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump “has no intention” of releasing his tax returns to the public, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said Wednesday, asserting Americans have “plenty of information” about the president’s financial matters.

For decades, presidents have released their tax returns. But Trump has refused, saying he would share the tax documents only after the Internal Revenue Service completes an “audit” of them.

He’s never disclosed proof of an audit, and tax lawyers say there’s nothing preventing him from releasing his returns even if he’s under one.

Trump said before he launched his campaign that he’d release them if he ever ran for office.

“If I decide to run for office, I’ll produce my tax returns, absolutely,” he told an Irish television station in 2014. “And I would love to do that.”

But Mnuchin appeared to close that door completely Wednesday.

“The president has no intention. The president has released plenty of information, and I think has given more financial disclosure than anybody else,” he said, inaccurately characterizing the president’s disclosures.

The comment came as Mnuchin briefed reporters on Trump’s proposal to overhaul taxes.

The plan calls for doubling the standard deduction that people can claim on their income-tax returns, which would lower tax bills for some taxpayers and lead to a much-simpler tax-filing process for others. Under the proposal, married couples filing jointly would not owe income taxes on the first $24,000 of income (up from $12,600).

Gary Cohn, director of Trump’s National Economic Council, said the higher standard deduction means fewer people will have to file itemized deductions to reduce their taxable income, which could lead to a simpler tax return.

Most tax deductions are going away

All individual tax deductions would be eliminated, with the exception of deductions related to homeownership and charitable contributions, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Wednesday.

Under that scenario, taxpayers no longer would be able to write off expenses

The plan calls for increasing the tax benefits available to families paying for childand dependent-care costs, such as day care, but few details were provided. Trump is considering raising the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, a tax break that currently allows parents to reduce their tax bills by up to $2,100, based on how much they spend on child care.

The approach would be different from Trump’s earlier plan, which was criticized as an approach that would mostly benefit higher earners. That plan would have allowed parents to deduct the cost of child care from their income, which would not have provided much tax savings to lowerincome families that don’t owe much in income taxes.

Reduced taxes on the wealthy

The plan calls for eliminating two key taxes that traditionally affect higher earners: the alternative minimum tax and the estate tax.

Some small and family run businesses are subject to individual income-tax rates, which currently are as high as 39.6 percent. Under the president’s plan, they would pay a lower rate of 15 percent. Mnuchin said the administration would include provisions to keep wealthy business owners of large companies from taking advantage of the lower rate, but he did not offer details.

After the plan was outlined Wednesday, some Democrats were immediately skeptical. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., predicted the package could amount to major tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and for businesses like those formerly run by Trump.

“That’s not tax reform,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “That’s just a tax giveaway to the very, very wealthy that will explode the deficit.”

Mnuchin didn’t address what the deficit impact would be of the tax cuts. Many budget experts believe tax cuts of the size Trump will propose would lead the government to lose trillions of dollars in revenue over 10 years, ballooning the government debt. Mnuchin did not specify any way of raising new tax revenue to offset the big cuts in tax rates.

But he did say the goal of the tax plan would be to create so much economic growth that it would create new revenue on its own.