Discussion: WATCH LIVE: Mnuchin, Cohn Hold Joint Press Conference At 1:30 PM ET

What ? No Spicey ? Disappointed !

It will be to announce this:

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Some highlights, for the click-averse:

Much lower business rates: Trump still wants to slash the top tax rate for all businesses to 15%, as he proposed during the campaign. That’s well below the top rate of 35% for corporations today, although the real top rate they pay is less after tax breaks.

A drop to 15% would also be a huge drop from the 39.6% top rate paid by owners and shareholders of so-called pass-through businesses. Those run the gamut from mom-and-pop shops to law firms and hedge funds. In a pass-through business, the owners and shareholders report profits on their personal tax returns.

One-time tax on overseas profits: The president may again call for a low, one-time tax on the $2.6 trillion of profits that were earned overseas by U.S. multinational corporations and were technically never brought back to the United States.

The Tax Policy Center estimated last fall that such a provision could raise $148 billion over a decade, money that could be used to offset the cost of some of Trump’s desired tax cuts.

No border adjustment tax as proposed: Trump is not expected to back a controversial provision known as the border adjustment tax that was proposed by House Republicans.

“We don’t think it works in its current form, and we will have discussions with [House tax writers] about revisions,” Mnuchin said.

A border adjustment tax would fundamentally alter how imports and exports are taxed. Under the House plan, companies could no longer deduct the cost of their imported goods, and sales of their exports would no longer be subject to U.S. tax.

Such a provision could raise more than $1 trillion over a decade, which the House GOP was counting on to help offset the cost of their proposed rate cuts.

Trump has been a proponent of a selective import tax – and has suggested he might favor a “reciprocal” tax. But he has yet to explain what that means.

Lower individual income tax rates: The White House still hasn’t settled on which rates they’ll propose.

As a candidate, Trump proposed to reduce the number of tax brackets from seven to three for individuals. Initially, he called for those rates to be 10% 20% and 25%. That’s well below today’s top rates of of 28%, 33% and 39.6%.

Then he amended his plan, calling for somewhat higher rates to match what House Republicans have been calling for: 12%, 25% and 33%.

Mnuchin suggested as a result of Trump’s proposals many average Americans won’t end up owing any federal income tax at all.

Tax break for child care costs: It’s not clear what specifically he will call for. But late in the campaign, Trump called for two tax breaks to help ease families’ child care costs. One would let parents deduct the average cost of child care in their state, based on their child’s age.

The other would give a tax break to anyone who sets aside up to $2,000 a year to cover costs associated with child care and elder care.

The contributions would be tax deductible, then grow tax free.

Tax and child care policy experts have said both breaks, as proposed, would disproportionately benefit wealthier families. And in the case of millions of low- and middle-income families, the breaks would raise their tax burden when combined with Trump’s other proposals to eliminate head of household status, repeal personal exemptions and raise the lowest income tax rate to 12% from 10% currently.

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Announcing intent to pull out of NAFTA? More Tax Cut Scheme smoke and mirrors? Masturbating to a graph of the “Laffer Curve?”

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And here come the bozos.

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And they are live…

It’s team Goldman-Sachs: Mnuchin and Cohn,

Cohn is praising the small tax-payer, carefully avoiding the term ‘progressive taxation’…

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Let me guess: two lying assholes, lying.

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Right out of the gate.

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Announcements get decent ratings but they’re meaningless.

Boast when you get it through Congress, hotshots.

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and when some of the attractive sounding proposals are applied to real, lower and middle-income families.

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Same old same old and, oh, backdoor gutting Obamacare sounds like a plan…They had some good meetings, huh?!?

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Seriously, dude (Mnuchin)? Every human will need to incorporate to have access to those lower rates. Am I getting that right?

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Will NO ONE ask the obvious question, “HOW ARE YOU GOING TO PAY FOR IT??” ??

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“We’ll get back to you on the details” . . . . well tax policy is all about the details. They don’t even have the income levels for the 3 proposed tax rates determined. Wow . . . .

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What’s that old saying? - “Not ready for prime time.” That applies here in spades.

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Whenever I hear about the GOP planning tax “reform” I get this earworm:

“Stimulate business investment.” Ah, now I get it – businesses and very wealthy individuals putting more money in offshore accounts. Piss on the middle class and lower classes. Yes, that most assuredly is a core principle.

ETA: Creating jobs, eh? Giving large businesses and wealthy folks even more money does not create one single job. Creating a market, on the other hand, tends to create jobs.

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then there is this nugget, value to it? I don’t know, maybe its “fake news”

“At a meeting with members of the Senate
Banking Committee earlier this month, Gary Cohn, the director of the
White House National Economic Council, discussed ideas that would remove
pretax benefits from retirement accounts including 401(k)s and shift
them to after-tax benefits, according to people familiar with the
discussions.”

another discussion here:

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I always get nervous that maybe the GOP is finally going to get something together that will screw most of the population even more. My anxiety level is rapidly diminishing. They don’t have ANY of this worked out, meaning they will get opposition from both sides. I can’t believe someone like Mnuchin was willing to come out and take questions about something this nebulous.

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