President Donald Trump will start publicly campaigning for the tax reform plan next week, chief economic advisor Gary Cohn said.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Cohn said Trump will begin the campaign Wednesday in Missouri.
“Starting next week, the president’s agenda and calendar is going to revolve around tax reform,” Cohn said in the interview published Friday. “He will start being on the road making major addresses justifying the reasoning for tax reform and why we need it in the U.S.”
Cohn added that the administration does not have “fixed or detailed plan for tax reform” and will leave it to the congressional committees to finalize the legislation. He did say the White House does want it to include a one-time corporate tax repatriation on overseas profits and a move to a territorial system.
Cohn also said the tax reform plan will protect the personal charitable, mortgage and retirement savings deductions but take away other deductions for individuals. He noted the White House also wants to eliminate “death” and estate taxes. For corporations, the plan will lower the overall tax rate in exchange for eliminating other deductions, he added.
“The White House will start rolling out messaging on tax reform next week, but not the plan being worked on with House and Senate GOP leaders,” Axios’ Jonathan Swan wrote Thursday, citing two senior administration officials. “A bill is being drafted and the plan is still to get Trump to sell tax reform at public events in the coming month.”
Axios later reported the tax plan is slated to come from the House Ways and Means Committee by the end of September.
“A senior source says Trump will sell this hard, in a way that he never did with health care,” the report said. “Trump will argue that tax reform is necessary to spur economic growth.”
Source: CNBC
