Although Donald Trump has yet to reveal any real policies on anything other than immigration, the Republican party’s front-running presidential nominee gave reporters an insight into his economic vision for the U.S. which contained somewhat of a surprise – changing the tax code to raise taxes on the rich.
“I would change it. I would simplify it,” he said, zeroing in on hedge fund profits, that currently enjoy a lower tax rate than income tax.
“I would take carried interest out, and I would let people making hundreds of millions of dollars-a-year pay some tax, because right now they are paying very little tax and I think it’s outrageous,” he said. “I want to lower taxes for the middle class.”
When questioned on whether his proposed tax changes meant he would be prepared to raise his own tax rate, Trump answered with “That’s right. That’s right. I’m OK with it. You’ve seen my statements, I do very well, I don’t mind paying some taxes. The middle class is getting clobbered in this country. You know the middle class built this country, not the hedge fund guys, but I know people in hedge funds that pay almost nothing and it’s ridiculous, OK?”
Trump’s hedge fund taxing stance does not differ from that of his main rivals in the presidential nomination race, but he showed he was on his own about Congressional Republicans taking on President Obama on the issue of raising the debt ceiling.
“I would say that it’s worth the fight, because honestly there’s so much fat in Washington, that if you had the right people in there you could cut it and there would be no problem,” he said although agreeing that in reality the ceiling would be raised. “Short term, maybe it’s going to happen.”
Trump revealed he had held talks with Carl Icahn, a well known and influential U.S. businessman about corporate inversion, where companies re-incorporate overseas as a loophole to lower the cost of doing business when headquartered in the U.S..
“I just spoke to him, and he said, ‘such a big problem, corporate inversion.’ Where we have two-and-a-half trillion dollars sitting outside, can’t come in and now what’s happening is companies are leaving this country. You know it used to be you’d leave New York for Florida, or you leave New Jersey for Texas or something. It used to be state to state. Now it’s country for country. We have companies with thousands and thousands of jobs that are leaving this country to go out and get their money.” said Trump.
He added “Let the money come in, tax it at a much lower rate, and let the money come in. This is money that could be spent in this country, and they can’t get it in.”
Responding to questions about whether he was against American consumers enjoying cheaper products as a result of China devaluing its currency, which he has criticised, Trump responded with “No, what I’m against is when they devalue their currency and this has been a big thing with me for a long time. Not only that, Japan is doing the big devaluation now, so it’s impossible for our companies to compete.”
Continuing in the vein of revaluing and devaluing, Trump said he has upped his own value as a Presidential candidate. He said he sees his chances of becoming the next U.S. President as “Let’s say maybe 25 or 30 percent. If you’re conservative. I’m conservative”. Back in June he had rated his chances as “anywhere from 10 to 20 percent”.
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