Details of Trump’s Tax Plan

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• There are some good points to it but the one thing I dislike very much is that 75 million people will not be paying any tax.

  I believe everyone who earns money should have to pay federal income tax, even it is pretty much symbolic. If you make less than 25K perhaps a half of a percent tax and between 25K and 50k a one percent rate.

  The fact is everyone benefits from the few good things government does. We should all have skin in the game. And to ensure that it stays that way, I'd require the .5% and 1% rates to increase at the same percentage that Congress increases the other three rates--which they will do eventually.

  That means that Congress would have to increase everyone's rates, not just a select few at the upper bracket.

  I would also include a law that said if Congress balances the budget than those making 50K or less don't pay any taxes--incentive for Congress to help the poorest by helping everyone else paying taxes.

  For too long too many people enjoy the benefits of Congressional spending and they don't have any skin the game. They just keep voting the money in other people's pockets and contributing nothing.

  I'd also put an end to the insane Earned Income Credit. It's just another welfare scam to buy votes. It is neither Earned Income nor Credit. It's a flat out give way program that takes my money and just gives it to someone else. The government is supposed to be maintaining infrastructure, the military, etc. It's not supposed to be giving away money to other people.

  And finally, I'd dump virtually every subsidy to business on the books and eliminate the EPA mandate on Ethanol (because a mandate is the same thing as a tax on the people and the EPA doesn't have the authority to tax). If a business can't keep its doors open by selling or providing a produce that is demand, then that product isn't needed.

  If the government wants to support technology development then create the equivalent of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for commercial technologies. DARPA tries to look out 5-20 years into the future and develop new technologies for the military.

  Create a Commercial Advanced Research Programs Agency (CARPA) to do the same thing for the private sector. All new technologies would be freely available to any company that felt it could use them.

  Most of the other points Trump has are OK. The problem is that he will never get it through the Senate so such a tax reform will never get to him to be signed.

  I'm 70 years old and for 50 years all I've heard is that the tax code needs to be simplified. But in the past 50 years, it's only gotten worse. So political speeches are interesting, but nothing good ever seems to happen.

• 15 candidates and I don't like any of them as the next president. Does not mean I do not like some of them as conservative thinkers (Cruz) but there is not one who inspires any confidence in me. This election is the last best chance for this country to pull out of the skid we've been in since 9/11. We can never go back to the way things were but how we move into the future is up to us. No way a Democrat should win the 2016 election given their field and how screwed up this country is and the damage inflicted upon it by BHO.

  Trump's tax plan is a liberal one. Like people said above, it removes any skin a lower income person would and should have. That voter becomes a ward of the state and will only vote to keep the free stuff coming....we all know that so why would a Republican propose this other than to attract votes? His tax plan is just as cynical as the Left's and it is a damn shame.

  • Sad fact of the matter is, that this proposal from "The Donald" is virtually the same as the proposals that the Looney lefties have been suggesting for decades! I think that if you don't pay taxes because you're receiving monthly lottery checks from the American tax payers, you should not be given the opportunity to vote----period! If you are an able bodied individual and you receive 45% or more of your income as an "entitlement" and you aren't being required to pay a general tax levy on this income, you don't get to vote for anyone, not even the local dog catcher, not until you can prove, over a period of at least seven years, that your income isn't some form of public assistance and you have been paying taxes along with everybody else. Personally, I would prefer to see a general consumption tax of some kind. Everybody pays, but nobody is forced to pay for shit they don't use or consume. In other words, if you want it, buy it for yourself and pay the consumption tax that is attached to it, whatever "IT" is. Foodstuffs and medicines could be exempted from taxation all together. I don't know, I could just be blowing smoke, but I think that enough taxes can be generated just from consumption to run the government; perhaps not enough for all the social entitlement programs that the f***ing progressive morons want to throw at us, but "We the People" shouldn't be paying for federally subsidized pork entitlement programs anyway...that's a state by state prerogative. The smaller the government and the more controls WE place on their behavior, the more freedoms we enjoy!

• Populist drivel

  Combined with massive tax hikes on imports which will hurt the American consumer.

• How about returning to a Constitutional government, and eliminating nearly all taxes?

  • YASSSSSS

    Truthfully there should be only one tax... tax on items being bought and sold. That's it.

  • That would make too much sense, and, force the welfare slugs to work.

  • At this point in the game, wewill always have a tax. The question becomes where the taxes are collected. A country this size needs SOME federal government, and that to.be paid for.

    • Notice, Rose, that I did NOT call for zero federal government. Only for the one described in the Constitution. In other words, one that is restricted to the enumerated powers, and forbidden to do anything else.

• What difference does it make? It's not like Trump will even get the nomination, much less the presidency.

  • He could have very well done both if he had come up with better plans than he is proposing. The liberal ex Democrat is slowing being revealed to us...

• This is not good. It only increases the number of people not paying any federal income tax and incentivizes people to be in the lowest income tax bracket. Why would anyone not paying taxes and living off dozens of free welfare benefits want to go to work in order to pay taxes?

  The answer to our tax code is as follows:

  1. Eliminate subsidies
  2. Close loop holes for the rich
  3. Simplify the tax code to eliminate most deductions
  4. Require everyone to pay at least a 2% minimum federal tax. Why? Because if you don't have any skin in the game, then you don't care what the government does as long as you get your free benefits. But everyone, EVERYONE, should have some skin in the game. Running the government takes money and everyone benefits from government services and so everyone should have to pay some federal taxes if they are working. Well, even if they are not working. I'm 70 years old and I have to pay tax on my social security and I have to pay tax on my government retirement (21 years in the Marine Corps as an infantry officer with 3 years in combat). So why shouldn't people who receive government benefits like me have to pay taxes on those benefits as well.

  And what in the world is the Earned Income Credit? It's not earned, it's not income generated from their own efforts, and it's not a credit. It's pure welfare to buy votes. At least tax it like they do my military retirement.

  If I win the lottery, I have to pay taxes on it. So why don't the people who receive welfare benefits (a form of the lottery) have to pay taxes on the benefits they receive????

  The answer is votes. Free welfare benefits are nothing more than bribes to the poor to vote for whoever voted to give them other peoples' money.

  I'm sick of this system. We are all Americans who need to contribute something, even if it is a token, to running America. No one should have completely free ride on other peoples' money. They should have skin in the game so they pay attention to what is happening to this country.

• Frankly, given that Beverly Hills and every other rich person's community are solidly blue, it would be nice for once to give them an education on what it's like being the middle class and having to take more than a drink or two on tax day.

  OTOH, according to Nolte, he apparently is also dancing around going with single payer health care. If so, that's cause for divorce. I'll be waiting for his position paper on that one.

• Flat tax is still the only way to go...By the time those muttonheads in congress get done, it never looks the same as when it started out, and each one of those 535 Einstein's has to add something to correct some wrong and that is why we have a tax code thats about 19,000 pages...

  Just do the damn flat tax, balanced budget and stop send our money to idiots around the world who don't like us anyway.

  • 74,608 pages. 2014 code.

    • I am about 50 years behind then... :0

• "4. No family will have to pay the death tax. You earned and saved that money for your family, not the government. You paid taxes on it when you earned it."

  Had this been in play the lesbian would have never run to the Supreme Court to keep her "wive's" money after she died. It is because of a lesbian not wanting to pay inheritance tax that we have "gay marriage" today and bakers and photographers are being sued and officials are being sent to prison.

  THIS is what the lesbian should have been fighting about... not about wanting the government to legalize her marriage which essentially forces others outside of government to accept her union.

  I am not going to lie I like what I read overall... although of course I prefer the tax system where you only pay taxes on items you actually buy not on income. Taxes on income is immoral.

• If I had a dime for every politician who spouted off about "simplifying the tax code," I'd be a billionaire too. It's bullshit. And removing 50% of the households who pay taxes? That's exacerbating the problem. The problem is too FEW people paying taxes, which has resulted in the fact that most Americans have absolutely no stake in whatever leftwing loony tune social experiment politicians decide to engage in tomorrow or the next day. EVERYBODY should pay taxes. EVERY American should be in the same boat.

  The answer is the Fair Tax. Income taxes are outdated, too cumbersome, and too easy to manipulate and avoid. We need a 21st century way to fund government, not another politician mouthing off about simplifying the tax code.

  • You are 100% correct. EVERYONE should have skin in the game. That means even the people receiving welfare should have to pay taxes on the benefits.

    Why?

    Because retired military have to pay taxes on their retirement pay. Because social security recipients who make above a certain amount must pay tax on it. Because if you win the lottery, the government takes up to 50% of it, because if you die and leave your family a large sum of money or a business above a certain amount, the government taxes it even though all of the taxes on that earned income had already been paid (hint: double taxation on the same money). The death tax needs to be abolished regardless of the amount because the taxes on those savings and investments have already been paid to the government.

    I could go on for pages, but Trump's tax plan will just mean more people have no skin in the game.

    Bad dog: no bone!

    • Agreed. Looks like a lot of the 'shiny' is starting to wear off of the Donald.