Trump willing to raise taxes

[aurora]

www.nytimes.com/2015/09/01/us/politics/republicans-wary-of-donald-trumps-populist-tone-on-taxes.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

Republicans Wary of Donald Trump’s Populist Tone on Taxes

By ALAN RAPPEPORTAUG. 31, 2015


WASHINGTON — For years, Republicans have run for office on promises of cutting taxes and bolstering business to stimulate economic growth, pledging allegiance to a Reaganesque model of conservatism that has largely become the party’s orthodoxy.

But this election cycle, the Republican presidential candidate who currently leads in the polls is taking a different approach, and it is jangling the nerves of some of the party’s most traditional supporters.

The tendency of that candidate, the billionaire developer Donald J. Trump, to make provocative, headline-grabbing speeches has helped obscure an emerging set of beliefs: that he would raise taxes in certain areas, particularly on corporations that he believes do not act in the best interests of the United States.

In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on American companies that put their factories in other countries. He has threatened to increase taxes on the compensation of hedge fund managers. And he has vowed to change laws that allow American companies to benefit from cheaper tax rates by using mergers to base their operations outside the United States.

Alarmed that those ideas might catch on with some of Mr. Trump’s Republican rivals — as his immigration policies have — the Club for Growth, an anti-tax think tank, is pulling together a team of economists to scrutinize his proposals and calculate the economic impact if he is elected.

“All of those are anti-growth policies,” said David McIntosh, the president of the Club for Growth, a group that Republican candidates routinely court. “Yes he’s a businessman, but if those are the policies he implements, they’ll drive the economy into the ground and we’ll see huge drops in G.D.P., and frankly I think it would lead to massive loss of jobs.”

The issue of taxing the compensation of hedge fund managers — carried interest — as ordinary income played prominently during the 2012 presidential election. Financial disclosures revealed that Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, had paid a relatively low tax rate over the years because he was earning retirement income in such a way from Bain Capital, a private equity firm.

Investment managers generally pay only a 15 percent capital gains tax on profits earned from their customers holdings, a treatment that Democrats often argue amplifies income inequality. Mr. Trump wants fund managers to “pay up.”

Mr. Trump’s ideas are not new. The Obama Treasury Department has a detailed overhaul of the corporate tax code that involves taxing hedge fund and private equity compensation as ordinary income and sweeping changes to the way U.S. corporations are taxed overseas. Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, is determined to produce his own corporate tax overhaul this fall that in part would finance a long-term highway and infrastructure bill. And he has the backing of some political odd bedfellows, President Obama, and Senators Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio and Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.

By inserting the issues into the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump has turned an obscure but high-stakes effort on Capitol Hill into a potentially major fight in the national Republican Party.

Mr. Trump’s business acumen has been one of his biggest selling points with voters. He promises that his boardroom experience would translate into favorable deals on the global stage and boasts that he cannot be bought by bankers or corporate lobbyists.

“I don’t want any strings attached,” Mr. Trump often says in his speeches, pointing to the big donations he has declined to take from lobbyists.

Mr. Trump has also threatened to make companies such as Ford “pay a price” for shifting their production to Mexico. And while he claims to be friendly with many of them, he has called hedge fund managers “paper pushers” who tend to get lucky on the road to riches. The populist tone is playing well with a subset of the Republican electorate that is frustrated with the status quo, but there are signs that Mr. Trump is beginning to alienate some in the party’s traditional base.

“Those aren’t the types of things a typical Republican candidate would say,” said Michael R. Strain, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, referring to the candidate’s comments on hedge funds, support for entitlement spending and the imposing of trade tariffs. “A lot of these things are not things that businesses would be happy about.”

Grover Norquist, the founder of Americans for Tax Reform, is holding out hope for Mr. Trump even though Mr. Trump and former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida are the only leading Republican candidates who have not signed a pledge to not raise taxes. Mr. Trump said last month that he was still considering the pledge and that he had no plans for a net tax increase. His suggestion that he would increase the tax on carried interest, however, has raised eyebrows.

“I would certainly be concerned about how that conversation would continue,” Mr. Norquist said. “Democrats will take that and say, ‘Now that you’ve conceded the principle, let’s go further.’”

While Mr. Norquist said he had no problem with candidates making bold proposals for investing in infrastructure — such as border walls and roads — or the military, he thinks it is important that they detail where they would make requisite budget cuts.

Mr. Trump declined to comment on his economic agenda, and a spokeswoman for his campaign said a tax plan would be rolled out in the next few weeks.

As with many of Mr. Trump’s policy ideas, confusion seems to be keeping interested parties from knowing exactly how to respond. In an interview with Fox News last week, Mr. Trump said a flat tax would be viable improvements to America’s tax system. Moments later, he suggested that a flat tax would be unfair because the rich would be taxed at the same rate as the poor.

“The one problem I have with the flat tax is that rich people are paying the same as people that are making very little money,” Mr. Trump said. “And I think there should be a graduation of some kind.”

Ultimately, he has settled on simplifying the tax code as a sensible first step, saying taxpayers spend too much time and money on their returns. H&R Block, the tax preparation company, should be put out of business, according to Mr. Trump.

“I think it’s tough to really know what he’s thinking about any of this stuff,” said Mr. Strain of the American Enterprise Institute.

Corporate inversions are another issue on which Mr. Trump’s positions have been slippery. This practice — companies acquire smaller overseas firms and move their headquarters to countries with lower taxes — has become increasingly popular in the last few years, costing the United States billions of dollars in lost revenue and drawing the ire of Democrats in Congress. In an interview with Time magazine, Mr. Trump called for a crackdown on inversions, but his solution also seemed to suggest giving companies a tax holiday in exchange for repatriating.

On Wall Street, Mr. Trump’s attacks on the rich so far have mostly led to eye rolls and a few winces.

Anthony Scaramucci, a managing partner of SkyBridge Capital who supports Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin in the Republican presidential race, visited Mr. Trump last week to complain about the way he was talking about hedge fund managers. Still frustrated, Mr. Scaramucci took to Twitter over the weekend to say that Mr. Trump is “misinformed” about the industry and that he and most of his colleagues pay the highest marginal tax rate.

Les Funtleyder, a portfolio manager at E Squared Asset Management in New York, said Mr. Trump was still widely considered to be a long-shot candidate in hedge fund and private equity circles. If his positions on raising taxes on their businesses gain traction, Mr. Funtleyder suggested, then some members of the financial industry will probably form a political action committee or donate to a candidate who would tell their side of the story.

Until then, however, Mr. Trump’s tough talk on business remains relatively harmless to the one-percent set.

“He’s just hitting all the populist high notes,” Mr. Funtleyder said, noting that hedge fund managers are easy targets for politicians. “It is unusual for a Republican to say it.”

Jonathan Weisman contributed reporting.

[aurora]

I know I'm part of the problem here about giving Trump too much attention, but it's actually kind of fascinating to me that he's willing to challenge such a long-cherished belief about taxes within his party.

[josieposy]

I don't even know what I'm reading anymore.

[laurenpetro]

Aug 31, 2015 12:40:06 GMT -5 aurora said:

I know I'm part of the problem here about giving Trump too much attention, but it's actually kind of fascinating to me that he's willing to challenge such a long-cherished belief about taxes within his party.

TBF he hasn't been a Republican terribly long.    

[sangria]

Aug 31, 2015 12:48:35 GMT -5 laurenpetro said:

Aug 31, 2015 12:40:06 GMT -5 aurora said:

I know I'm part of the problem here about giving Trump too much attention, but it's actually kind of fascinating to me that he's willing to challenge such a long-cherished belief about taxes within his party.

TBF he hasn't been a Republican terribly long.    

I'm starting to feel like he's running a con on all the Rs and this just feeds that tin foil hat theory for me. 

[ttt]

Quiet....listen....did you hear that? It was the sound of Republican heads exploding across the country.

[josieposy]

Now Carson has basically tied with him according to a new poll. I don't think I have heard Carson say more than 20-30 words so far this entire campaign.

[downtoearth]

Aug 31, 2015 12:49:01 GMT -5 @choco said:

Lol that no other frontrunner is coming close to beating him from the GOP side. Seriously people?

Question about the population who is polled for these races. They are still the folks who have a landline, correct?

It depends. I think since about 2008, landline only surveys have falling away. It's harder and more expensive, but mixed mode surveys (a combo of landline, cellphone, internet, and panel surveys) is more the norm.  I don't know how effective that is in weekly survey's, but generally, this Pew info says that 44% of US adults have only a cell phone and that 58-69% of 18 to 29 year olds have only a cell phone, so yes, you'd be missing over half the younger voting population if you didn't take internet or cell phone surveys into account.

[gpw]

Aug 31, 2015 12:53:21 GMT -5 ttt said:

Quiet....listen....did you hear that? It was the sound of Republican heads exploding across the country.

I seriously think he's trying to get out of the race.  I mean, it seems like he goes for the most inflammatory thing and makes it so outrageous.  He has to know it is.  I think he's trying to get booted.  I have thought this awhile but really starting believing it when he defended big game hunting. 

Telling conservatives you want to raise taxes has GOT to be his out this time.  

....right?

[sushi]

I've been surveyed on my cell. The only bad thing about that is it's done by area code, and mine is not from where I vote.

[sangria]

Aug 31, 2015 13:02:40 GMT -5 gpw said:

Aug 31, 2015 12:53:21 GMT -5 ttt said:

Quiet....listen....did you hear that? It was the sound of Republican heads exploding across the country.

I seriously think he's trying to get out of the race.  I mean, it seems like he goes for the most inflammatory thing and makes it so outrageous.  He has to know it is.  I think he's trying to get booted.  I have thought this awhile but really starting believing it when he defended big game hunting. 

Telling conservatives you want to raise taxes has GOT to be his out this time.  

....right?

Ok, so I’m with you on this somewhat. There is something that I can’t put my finger on about Trump that makes me think he doesn’t actually WANT to be president. But why not just drop out? Seems like it would be easier than trying to lose.



I just can’t figure out his endgame here. I’m pretty confident that it’s not winning the election.

[gpw]

Aug 31, 2015 13:08:08 GMT -5 sangria said:

Aug 31, 2015 13:02:40 GMT -5 gpw said:

I seriously think he's trying to get out of the race.  I mean, it seems like he goes for the most inflammatory thing and makes it so outrageous.  He has to know it is.  I think he's trying to get booted.  I have thought this awhile but really starting believing it when he defended big game hunting. 

Telling conservatives you want to raise taxes has GOT to be his out this time.  

....right?

Ok, so I’m with you on this somewhat. There is something that I can’t put my finger on about Trump that makes me think he doesn’t actually WANT to be president. But why not just drop out? Seems like it would be easier than trying to lose.



I just can’t figure out his endgame here. I’m pretty confident that it’s not winning the election.

He can't quit.  I understand that mentality.  I'm that way, too.  I can't quit something.  

I think he would rather be run off than quit.  

[ESF]

Aug 31, 2015 13:02:40 GMT -5 gpw said:

Aug 31, 2015 12:53:21 GMT -5 ttt said:

Quiet....listen....did you hear that? It was the sound of Republican heads exploding across the country.

I seriously think he's trying to get out of the race.  I mean, it seems like he goes for the most inflammatory thing and makes it so outrageous.  He has to know it is.  I think he's trying to get booted.  I have thought this awhile but really starting believing it when he defended big game hunting. 

Telling conservatives you want to raise taxes has GOT to be his out this time.  

....right?

No because his base isn't really "conservative." It's working class whites, whose interests have never aligned with the Republican establishment.  They might agree that you shouldn't tax rich people and job creators more, but all bets are off when you are talking about things like Wall Street and businesses moving operations overseas. 

[ESF]

And I don't believe that he wants out. If he really wanted out, he could just tweet "Black Lives Matter" and the entire thing will be over before the nightly news.

He wants in. He is loving this.

[ttt]

Aug 31, 2015 13:08:08 GMT -5 sangria said:

Aug 31, 2015 13:02:40 GMT -5 gpw said:

I seriously think he's trying to get out of the race.  I mean, it seems like he goes for the most inflammatory thing and makes it so outrageous.  He has to know it is.  I think he's trying to get booted.  I have thought this awhile but really starting believing it when he defended big game hunting. 

Telling conservatives you want to raise taxes has GOT to be his out this time.  

....right?

Ok, so I’m with you on this somewhat. There is something that I can’t put my finger on about Trump that makes me think he doesn’t actually WANT to be president. But why not just drop out? Seems like it would be easier than trying to lose.



I just can’t figure out his endgame here. I’m pretty confident that it’s not winning the election.

I truly think it's just an ego game for him. He can't drop out, because that wouldn't be fun. It would be more fun to be run out by the "establishment" and maintain your outsider "speaking truth to power" status.

He's doing this for his personal brand, IMO. And because he's already worth tons of money, his name is synonymous with "super rich" and where do you go from there? Now it's just about status and attention. 

[saz]

Aug 31, 2015 13:19:19 GMT -5 ESF said:

Aug 31, 2015 13:02:40 GMT -5 gpw said:

I seriously think he's trying to get out of the race.  I mean, it seems like he goes for the most inflammatory thing and makes it so outrageous.  He has to know it is.  I think he's trying to get booted.  I have thought this awhile but really starting believing it when he defended big game hunting. 

Telling conservatives you want to raise taxes has GOT to be his out this time.  

....right?

No because his base isn't really "conservative." It's working class whites, whose interests have never aligned with the Republican establishment.  They might agree that you shouldn't tax rich people and job creators more, but all bets are off when you are talking about things like Wall Street and businesses moving operations overseas. 

Yeah, if you watched the interview with him and Sarah Palin (I cannot believe I am typing those words WTF), she asked him about this and she was all "I mean, I don't think that I'd want to invite more taxes upon myself!" and he just kept talking about "hedge fund guys" who are making "a fortune" and paying "no taxes." So he wasn't really talking about raising taxes on job creators, himself, billionaires, etc - just these anonymous hedge fund guys who pay no taxes.

[simpsongal]

I think the anti-inversion sentiment is present on both sides of the aisle (so is a tax holiday to encourage repatriation).

At least he shot down the flat tax...