Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Explainer: What you should know about President Trump’s tax reform plan
Explainer: What you should know about President Trump’s tax reform plan
Jan 31, 2026 3:08 PM

Yesterday the Trump administration released its tax-reform plan, which the White House is calling the “biggest individual and business tax cut in American history.” Here is what you should know about the plan:

What are the goals of the tax reform plan:

The stated goals are to:

• Grow the economy and create millions of jobs

• Simplify our burdensome tax code

• Provide tax relief to American families—especially e families

• Lower the business tax rate from one of the highest in the world to one of the lowest

What are the objective for individual taxpayer reform?

The plan promises:

• Tax relief for American families, especially e families:

• Reducing the 7 tax brackets to 3 tax brackets of 10%, 25% and 35%

• Doubling the standard deduction

• Providing tax relief for families with child and dependent care expenses

• Eliminate targeted tax breaks that mainly benefit the wealthiest taxpayers

• Protect the home ownership and charitable gift tax deductions

• Repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax

• Repeal the death tax

• Repeal the 3.8% Obamacare tax that hits small businesses and investment e

How does the plan affect individual taxpayers?

The effect on individual taxpayers would vary widely, depending on numerous factors.

For example, the plan promises to reduce the tax brackets to 10 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent, but doesn’t say who would fall into those categories. When asked about it at the roll-out briefing, Director of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn called such information a “micro-detail.”

The standard deduction would double from $6,300 to $12,600 for single individuals and from $12,600 to $24,000 for married couples. The effect of this increase is unclear since it will be offset by a reduction in other tax deductions (deductions for home ownership, charitable giving, and retirement savings would remain while all other tax benefits would be eliminated). For example, if you live in a city or state with a high local or state tax you’d no longer be able to deduct those taxes from your federal tax bill. But a married couple earning $24,000 would benefit the most since they would no longer pay not tax at all.

While some people will benefit from the new standard deduction, other middle class taxpayers will end up paying more. As Forbes contributor Tony Nitti explains:

[T]he plan would increase the standard deduction from $12,600 to $24,000 ($12,000 if single), and eliminate personal exemptions.

So if you’re scoring at home, a family of five that currently claims the standard deduction will actuallylosedeductions under the Trump plan. Under current law, they would be entitled to a $12,600 standard deduction and $20,250 of personal exemptions, for a total tax benefit of $32,850. Under this latest proposal, that would be replaced with a $24,000 standard deduction and no personal exemptions. That’s going to be a tough sell.

Families are promised “tax relief to help them with child and dependent care expenses.” But no details have been released on that aspect of the proposal.

The plan would also eliminate the alternative minimum tax (AMT), which affects e individuals and couples, and the estate tax, which affects only about 5,000 tax returns but generates $19.7 billion in taxes. Additionally, the plan would also repeal the 3.8 percent Obamacare tax on dividends and capital gains.

What are the objective for business tax reform?

The reform plan for businesses contains four elements:

• 15 percent business tax rate

• Territorial tax system to level the playing field for panies

• One-time tax on trillions of dollars held overseas

• Eliminate tax breaks for special interests

How does the plan affect individual businesses?

The plan would reduce the federal tax on all business e from 35 percent to 15 percent. This would affect not only corporations (C corporations) but also small businesses that are structured as partnerships or S Corporations.

The plan also includes a one-time tax on overseas profits. This is estimated to bring in an additional one-time total of $250 billion, which the administration wants to use for its infrastructure spending.

The other items are still too vague to know how they would affect businesses.

Why are so few details listed in the plan?

The “plan” is more of an outline with the details to be filled in at a later date. As the plan notes in the “process” section:

Throughout the month of May, the Trump Administration will hold listening sessions with stakeholders to receive their input and will continue working with the House and Senate to develop the details of a plan that provides massive tax relief, creates jobs, and makes America petitive—and can pass both chambers.”

How would this plan affect the deficit?

Because this plan includes only tax cuts and no offsets in spending, the effect would be an estimated increase in the deficit of between $2-7 trillion over the next decade.

How does this plan differ from the proposal outlined by President Trump during the campaign?

The new plan includes five items that Trump promised on the campaign trail: reducing the tax brackets, increasing the standard deduction, reducing business tax to 15 percent, and eliminating the AMT and estate tax.

However, Trump’s campaign plan promised to be “revenue neutral” (i.e., would not increase the deficit), a claim which few economists outside of the White House believes is possible.

What are the chances that this plan is fully implemented?

Near zero. Many individual taxpayers will balk at the removal of their itemized deductions, and Republicans in Congress will not want to support a plan that leads to such substantial increases in the deficit.

While Congress will likely pass some elements, there isn’t much chance President Trump will be able to get all of the items on his tax reform wish list.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Jacoby, D’Souza debate Religion in the Public Square
Susan Jacoby and Dinesh D’Souza met here in Grand Rapids at Fountain Street Church on Thursday, April 26, to debate the merits of religion in public discourse. The debate, co-sponsored by The Intercollegiate Studies Institute and the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies, was titled, “Is Christianity Good for American Politics?” Susan Jacoby is program director at The Center for Inquiry and author of The Age of American Unreason and Alger Hiss and The Battle for History. She argued for the...
What Christian Education Is Not
“Each generation needs to re-own the rationale for Christian education,” says philosopher James K.A. Smith, “to ask ourselves ‘Why did we do this?’ and ‘Should we keep doing this?’” In answering such questions, Smith notes, “it might be helpful to point out what Christian education is not”: First, Christian education is not meant to be merely “safe” education. The impetus for Christian schooling is not a protectionist concern, driven by fear, to sequester children from the big, bad world. Christian...
The Next Civil Rights Movement
During last year’s Acton University—have you signed up for this year yet?—Nelson Kloosterman gave a lecture on the subject of school choice and private education. In the latest issue of Comment magazine, Kloosterman expands on his claim that parental choice is “the next civil rights movement“: Let me begin with some ments designed to set up the discussion that follows. First, and most importantly, I believe that the fundamental issue in this matter involves parental choice, even though the far...
Writing Tips for Your On Call in Culture Blog Entry
“Think, Think, Think” –Pooh It’s always hard to sit down and write. There are a million distractions that tempt us away from the keyboard or notepad and entangle us in the details of life. Not that these details are bad. In fact, as munity focused on being On Call in Culture, many of those details are the whole purpose. But before you get out there and answer the calling that God has put on your life as a dentist, professor,...
Are Young Millennials Less Religious or Simply Young?
Joe Carter recently posted a summary of a new studyconducted jointly by Public Religion Research Institute and Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs that shows that college-aged Millennials (18-24 year olds) “report significant levels of movement from the religious affiliation of their childhood, mostly toward identifying as religiously unaffiliated.” He also noted the tendency of college-aged Millennials to be more politically liberal. Just yesterday, the same study was highlighted by Robert Jones of the Washington Post,...
The Heritage Guide to the Constitution
Our friends at the Heritage Foundation have created an invaluable online tool for learning about the U.S. Constitution: The Heritage Guide to the Constitution is intended to provide a brief and accurate explanation of each clause of the Constitution as envisioned by the Framers and as applied in contemporary law. Its particular aim is to provide lawmakers with a means to defend their role and to fulfill their responsibilities in our constitutional order. Yet while the Guide will provide a...
Was Thomas More a proto-communist?
In Utopia, many modern intellectuals say Sir Thomas More advocates an ideal political and social order without private petition, citizens quarreling over worldly possessions, poverty and other “evils” supposedly brought on by a market-based society. At least that is the way social liberals, including left-leaning Christians, tend to interpret this great saint’s 1516 literary masterpiece, believing the English Catholic statesman’s work presents his vision of an ideal monwealth modeled on the early Church (even ifthose munist experiments failed). Recently, Istituto...
Video: Chuck Colson speaks at the Abraham Kuyper & Leo XIII Conference
On October 31, 1998, Charles Colson came to Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan to deliver the closing address at Acton’s “The Legacy of Abraham Kuyper & Leo XIII” conference, sponsored jointly with Calvin Seminary. “This is a momentous time for the Church as we reflect on two thousand years since the birth of Christ, and as we approach the millenium. And the question, I suspect, that all of us are asking and that the Church should be asking across...
Fair Trade or Free Trade?
Is ‘fair trade’ more fair or more just than free trade? While free trade has been increasingly maligned, The Fair Trade movement has e increasingly popular over the last several years. Many see this movement as a way to help people in the developing world and as a more just alternative to free trade. On the other hand, others argue that fair trade creates an unfair advantage that tends to harm the poor. Dr. Victor Claar addresses this question in...
Colson Memorial at Washington National Cathedral
A public memorial for Chuck Colson is slated to take place Wednesday, May 16, at 10 a.m. at the Washington National Cathedral. The event is open to the public and will also be streamed live at nationalcathedral.org. Additional information can be found in this DeMoss News news release. For more information on Colson’s life and relationship to the Acton Institute, please visit our Chuck Colson resource page. ...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved