The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board is dismissing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s tax reform plan, which was just released this week to mixed reviews from experts.
“Donald Trump has proposed a tax reform that’s like the rest of his presidential campaign,” said the Journal in an editorial on Wednesday. “It’s grandiose, seems to have been written on the back of an envelope, and promises far more than it could ever deliver.”
Trump’s tax plan reduces taxes across the board for people at every income level and entirely erases income tax to people who make less than $25,000 per year. It also eliminates the estate tax (“death tax”) and reduces the corporate income tax to 15 percent.
Unspecified in the plan are the tax deductions and loopholes Trump has said he would end and close to keep the new system revenue neutral. At that point, the Journal takes the greatest exception.
“Mr. Trump says all of this would be ‘revenue neutral’ because he would close loopholes and deductions,” the paper said. “But this can’t possibly be true. He offers almost no specific deductions he’d kill, and he rules out touching the politically sensitive mortgage-interest deduction.”
Ryan Ellis at the anti-tax Americans for Tax Reform has also said that Trump’s plan would not be revenue neutral.
“It’s intended by the campaign to be revenue neutral,” Ellis said in an email to the Washington Examiner media desk. “It apparently is not.”
