STEVE MNUCHIN/TAXES/TREASURY: “Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Friday [10-13-17] that some parts of a Republican plan to overhaul the tax code could be permanent, while others would only be temporary.
Mr. Mnuchin, speaking at a conference of international bankers, also said he expects Congress can have a bill to the president’s desk by the beginning of December, an aggressive timeline.
‘There’s tax cuts that absolutely have to be permanent,’ he said when asked whether the administration will be able to make tax cuts permanent. For example, moving to a territorial tax system, which would allow tax-free repatriation of future foreign profits, would be very difficult to unwind, he said.
On the other hand, the current GOP proposal includes a provision that would allow businesses to immediately write off investments for at least five years…
The size of tax cuts, and the extent to which they are made permanent, will be constrained by Senate rules that limit the ability of Republicans to increase budget deficits.
The party faces the challenge of fitting its tax goals—more than $5 trillion of rate cuts over a decade—into a budget plan that will likely allow for $1.5 trillion in bigger deficits over a decade and no additional deficits beyond that 10-year window. Doing so will require eliminating or shrinking some cherished tax breaks and could force the GOP to make some tax breaks temporary.
Mr. Mnuchin and other Trump administration officials have maintained the plan will generate enough economic growth to offset the costs of tax cuts, and may even reduce the deficit, a claim some tax analysts have said is very unlikely.”
-Kate Davidson, “Mnuchin Says Parts of Tax Plan Would Be Temporary,” The Wall Street Journal online, Oct. 13, 2017 10:02am