CNN
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Donald Trump portrays himself as a big friend of big business, especially during his first administration. Among his most notable efforts was slashing the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% as part of his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which contained multiple other beneficial measures for companies.
And he’s promising companies he’ll do more of the same if he’s elected in November for a second term. On Tuesday, he is scheduled to outline his plan for lowering taxes for American business owners and highlight the importance of buying goods made in the US in a speech in Savannah, Georgia.
The former president has already vowed to hike tariffs, which he has repeatedly claimed would help domestic manufacturers, and to further reduce the corporate tax rate to 15%, but only for companies that make their products in the US. Plus, he wants to renew several of the TCJA’s business tax changes – as well as all the individual income and estate tax cuts – that are expiring or have already lapsed.
Some of his plans stand in stark contrast to his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, who has proposed raising the corporate tax rate to 28% and quadrupling the tax on stock buybacks to 4% to help pay for her plans to assist middle-class and working Americans. She has also voiced support for President Joe Biden’s recent budget blueprint, which contains a variety of tax increases on big companies and wealthy people in an effort to ensure they pay their fair share.
Trump’s promised business tax cuts come alongside his suite of targeted tax relief for individuals, a list that continues to grow. He has vowed to eliminate federal taxes on tips, overtime pay and Social Security benefits, as well as restore the deductibility of state and local taxes, which was limited by his tax cuts package.
All of Trump’s tax cut proposals would need congressional approval, which could be difficult to muster even if Republicans win a healthy majority in both chambers. But he could institute his tariff policies by executive action.
Here’s what Trump is proposing to aid businesses:
Trump has said that if elected again, he would add tariffs of up to 20% on every foreign import coming into the US, as well as another tariff upward of 60% on all Chinese imports. He also said he would impose a “100% tariff” on countries that shift away from using the US dollar.
These new tariffs would be added to the duties he implemented on roughly $380 billion of imports – including many Chinese-made goods and steel and aluminum from several countries – when he was in the White House.
Trump used tariffs, in part, to help boost American manufacturing. But even when tariffs help some domestic producers, they hurt others.
For example, Trump’s tariffs made foreign steel more expensive to US consumers – so much so, that some may switch to an American supplier of steel. This is good for the US steel producer and as a result, some American steel companies reopened mills and created new jobs after the tariffs were implemented.
But for US manufacturers that use steel to make their goods, steel is more expensive, and the higher price hurts their bottom line.
Several studies – like one from the Tax Foundation and another from the US-China Business Council – say that overall, Trump’s tariffs hurt the US economy and resulted in a net loss of jobs.
In 2019, Federal Reserve economists found a net decrease in manufacturing employment due to the tariffs. That’s mostly because goods became more expensive to US businesses and consumers, and retaliatory tariffs put on American-made goods made other US manufacturers less competitive when selling abroad.
During the Trump administration, the US Chamber of Commerce often criticized the president’s tariff policies.
“In addition to raising costs for businesses and consumers, tariffs sow uncertainty that stifles economic growth,” John Murphy, who directs the US Chamber’s advocacy relating to international trade and investment policy, wrote in 2021.
Biden has kept most of Trump’s tariffs in place and recently increased the duty rate on some Chinese-made goods.
Trump has long wanted to reduce the corporate tax rate to below 21%. He unveiled his latest proposal earlier this month at the Economic Club of New York: a 15% rate for companies that make their products in the US.
“If you outsource, offshore, or replace American workers, you are not eligible for any of these benefits. In fact, you will pay a very substantial tariff when a product comes in from another country,” the former president said in his speech.
The campaign has not provided any details on the measure, but some experts say it sounds similar to the Section 199 domestic production activities deduction of 9% of income derived from domestic manufacturing. The complicated deduction existed between 2004 and 2017 as an incentive for companies to produce more goods and employ more workers in the US, particularly manufacturers, but was eliminated by the TCJA in favor of a simpler, lower corporate tax rate of 21%.
This targeted tax cut would complement Trump’s push to hike tariffs on imported products, said John Gimigliano, US head of tax legislative services at KPMG.
“You can see it all fitting together in a way because if we’re really trying to become less reliant on foreign goods, then we’re going to have to produce them here,” he said.
Reestablishing the deduction with a 15% effective rate would reduce revenues by $200 billion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
While most of the TCJA corporate tax changes are permanent, several measures have expired or are set to end soon. Trump has promised to extend the entire law, unlike Harris, who has indicated her support for letting the provisions targeted at the wealthy and big corporations lapse.
Notably, the tax cut law temporarily created a special deduction for the owners of certain pass-through entities who pay business taxes on their individual tax returns. The deduction, which also expires at the end of 2025, allows these taxpayers to exclude up to 20% of business income from their federal income tax. These so-called pass-through businesses include partnerships, such as those formed by lawyers, doctors or investors.
Also, if the business tax changes in the TCJA were renewed, companies would again be able to deduct the cost of their US-based research and experimentation investments immediately, instead of over five years, and immediately deduct 100% of their investment in machinery and equipment. Plus, extending the law would restore higher limits on the deductibility of interest expenses. GOP lawmakers had included these three scheduled tax increases in the TCJA as a way to offset its cost.
