INDIANAPOLIS — President Trump on Wednesday began an ambitious push to slash taxes and salvage what remains of his embattled legislative agenda in Congress this year, proposing a politically challenging array of tax cuts for individuals and businesses that would constitute the most sweeping changes to the federal tax code in decades.
Trump, smarting from the latest defeat this week of his efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, cast the tax plan as an economic imperative and the fulfillment of a promise to his working-class supporters to deliver benefits in the form of lower taxes, better jobs, and higher wages.
“This is a revolutionary change, and the biggest winners will be the everyday American workers as jobs start pouring into our country, as companies start competing for American labor, and as wages start going up at levels that you haven’t seen in many years,’’ Trump told hundreds of supporters in a speech at the Indiana State Fair Grounds.
But the president offered no measure of the plan’s cost and scant detail about how working people would benefit from a proposal that has explicit and substantial rewards for wealthy people and corporations, including the elimination of taxes on large inheritances and deep reductions in the rates paid by businesses large and small.
After months of secret talks among Republicans, the nine-page proposal produced by the so-called Big Six working group prompts as many questions as answers. Without more details, it is difficult to show how middle-income families will see the most benefit from the tax overhaul — or if it will favor the richest Americans.
On the individual side, the plan would collapse the tax brackets from seven to three, with tax rates of 12 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent, the president said. The current top rate is 39.6 percent and the lowest rate is 10 percent. The framework also gives Congress the option of creating a higher, fourth, rate above 35 percent in tax plan to ensure that the wealthy are paying their fair share.
The plan aims to simplify and cut taxes for the middle class by doubling the standard deduction to $12,000 for individuals and to $24,000 for married couples filing jointly. That would allow people to avoid a complicated process of itemizing their taxes to claim various credits and deductions. It would increase the child tax credit and create a $500 tax credit for non-child dependents, such as the elderly.
Provisions such as the alternative minimum tax and the estate tax, a levy on inherited wealth that Trump has derided for years, would be gone.
The proposal calls for reducing the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent, a shift that supporters say is needed to make US companies more competitive around the world.
A new tax rate of 25 percent would also be created for pass-through businesses, such as partnerships and sole proprietorships, which are taxed at the rate of their owners. About 95 percent of businesses in the United States are structured as pass-throughs, and they generate a majority of the government’s corporate tax revenue.
“This will be the lowest top marginal income tax rate for small and midsize businesses in this country in more than 80 years,’’ Trump said.
In an apparent nod to the harsh political realities the tax plan faces, Trump made an explicit overture to Democrats to support the plan.
“Democrats and Republicans in Congress should come together, finally, to deliver this giant win for the American people,’’ Trump said.
But behind the scenes, Republican congressional leaders and senior White House officials have discussed bypassing Democrats and using special budget rules that would allow them to get the bill through Congress on a simple majority vote.
Conservatives cheered the plan as a bold and long-awaited step to spur economic growth, while Democratic leaders condemned it as an irresponsible boon to the rich. And some budget watchdogs expressed worry about the long-term effect of a plan they said could cost more than $2 trillion over a decade.
Trump, who has broken with precedent for modern presidents by refusing to release his tax returns, insisted that wealthy people like him would not benefit — an assertion that seemed improbable for a man who runs a real estate empire and whose children stand to inherit vast sums.
“I’m doing the right thing, and it’s not good for me, believe me,’’ he said.
