White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow revised President Trump’s claim that he would abolish the payroll tax if reelected in November, explaining that the plan is to forgive the deferred tax and perhaps extend the cut into next year.
“The payroll tax deferral will be forgiven,” Kudlow said outside the White House on Thursday. “When he says, ‘We’ll terminate it,’ that’s what he is referring to. It will be forgiven.”
Trump said on Saturday that he planned to make “permanent cuts” to the tax if reelected, a move that Jenna Ellis, Trump’s attorney and a senior legal adviser to his reelection campaign, called the “biggest news of the day.”
Kudlow walked the statement back on Sunday.
On Wednesday, Trump again said he planned to make the cut permanent, telling reporters, “We’ll be terminating the payroll tax after I, hopefully, get elected.”
Kudlow said afterward that the tax deferral may be extended into next year and the deferral would cover the self-employed. The White House would make a technical change, he said.
He again stressed that the cut was intended as a temporary measure and said that Trump agreed.
“The president is saying that he will terminate the deferral on a forgiveness basis — that’s what he’s saying, just to be clear,” Kudlow said. “I can tell you we talked about it later. That’s what he is referring to.”
The cut would be financed through the Department of Treasury’s General Fund, he explained.
