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
Mar 30, 2026 7:10 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
Watch Live: Acton-CUA Event on Religious and Economic Liberty
Throughout Western developed nations, there is dawning recognition that robust protections for religious liberty can no longer be taken for granted. Less understood are the ways in which infringements of other political, civil mercial forms of freedom can subtly undermine religious liberty. Businesses and other institutions of civil society now need to consider how the restrictions of religious freedom by governments throughout the Western world is likely to affect them. Today the Acton Institute, in conjunction with the School of...
There’s More to the Story About the 90-Year-Old Charged With Feeding the Homeless
Cities across America – from Pensacola, Florida to Honolulu, Hawaii — have increasingly taken strong measures to discourage the homeless from making a home within their city limits. So it didn’t seem surprising when the media ran with a story last week about two pastors and a 90-year-old homeless advocate “Charged With Feeding Homeless.” As the AP reported, To Arnold Abbott, feeding the homeless in a public park in South Florida was an act of charity. To the city of...
Why Aren’t Sexual Assaults on College Campuses Treated Like Actual Crimes?
The Education Department has concluded an investigation at Princeton University, and determined that the school violated the Title IX gender equity law in its handling of sexual assault cases. What did Princeton do wrong? Part of the problem, says the Education Department, is that the university violated the rights of rape survivors by using a standard of proof for sexual assault cases higher than the federally mended standard, which requires a “preponderance of evidence” for responsibility. At this point you...
No Midterm Elections Could Save Europe
Things really aren’t looking good across the pond. Acton’s Director of Research, Samuel Gregg, has written quite a bit about the decline in Europe. His latest ‘Meanwhile, Europe is (Still) Burning’ in the American Spectator, discusses the inability or unwillingness of European governments to respond to economic trouble. Two of the world’s large economies, France and Italy, are examples of this. In France, workforce unemployment is 11 percent, the government has engaged in possibly illegal activity by hiding the fact...
Giving God What We Already Have
“What would happen if instead of focusing on what we don’t have, we consider what God has already given us — our talents, our dreams, our motivations — and offer them back to Him as an act of worship?” In a new video from HOPE International, we’re challenged to counter our tendencies to approach God through an attitude of lack and self-doubt (“if only I had x I would do y”), trusting instead that God has already given us exactly...
The Faces Of Modern Slavery
Photographer Lisa Kristine knows modern slavery intimately. She has spent years entrenched in the reality of slavery around the world, making it quite real for viewers. She says of her work: No matter how dire, how hard their experience of life has been becauseof theirsufferingas a slave, these people still have dignity,sensitivity,humanness and beauty. These images are not intended to be spectacles of horror; they’re intended to engage people in connectingsowe realize we’re all brothersand sisters.” Kristine says of this...
Buying Babies And The Industrialization Of Parenthood
“How am I supposed to get a baby?” There are many people who cannot get pregnant and have a child. Some are infertile. Some are single and have no one that wishes to parent with them. Gay couples cannot naturally have children. So how are these folks supposed to get the baby that they want? This is the question Alana S. Newman was faced with while speaking at the Bonds that Matter conference. It’s not the first time Newman has...
Fleeing Evil: On The Run From Boko Haram
Those schoolgirls captured by Boko Haram? Most are still missing. A boys’ school was bombed. Boko Haram says it wasn’t them, but the people don’t believe them. In Nigeria, for many people, life is about staying one step ahead of Boko Haram, trying to safeguard their children from getting swept up in the claws of this evil entity. In neighboring Adamawa state, almost 9,500 displaced people now live in a giant camp — one of five for displaced people in...
Happy Birthday Marines!
Today marks the 239th birthday of the finest fighting force in the history of the world. The Marine Corps Birthday makes me nostalgic for the good ol’ days of . . . well, okay, maybe good is too strong a word. In fact, I can’t say that I miss being on active duty (15 years was more than enough). But I do miss being with my fellow Marines. To give you an idea of what the life of a Marine...
Nuns’ Bus a Trojan Horse
More groups are beginning to notice the hypocrisy of nuns advocating for progressive causes, including and especially their stumping for campaign finance disclosure. Over at Juicy Ecumenism, the blog published by the Institute of Religion & Democracy, guest writer T.J. Whittle echoes what loyal PowerBlog readers will recognize as a familiar theme. Namely, the nuns are working in league with leftist organizations interested only in stifling their opponents’ political speech. In his essay, “Nuns in Glass Buses,” Whittle, a research...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved