Former President Trump proposed further cuts to the corporate tax rate during a business roundtable on Thursday with some of the country’s most powerful executives, according to a source in attendance.
The former president made his presentation shortly after White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients also gave an interview in front of the CEOs. President Biden has also been invited to attend, Business Roundtable said last week, but the president is currently in Italy for the Group of Seven summit.
Trump was interviewed by Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, who ran the National Economic Council under the former president, and Zients was interviewed by Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, according to another person familiar with the meeting.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, Trump’s signature tax bill, lowered the corporate tax rate to 21%, among other changes. The former president has said he wants to make all of the “Trump tax cuts” permanent and reduce the corporate tax rate to 20 percent, Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller told The Hill.
Miller also said Trump spoke at length about his proposed tip tax exemption for the service industry, which he proposed Sunday at a rally in Las Vegas, and which was well received.
A spokesperson for the Business Roundtable declined to comment on the closed-door, off-the-record meeting.
Trump’s tax platform stands in stark contrast to that of Biden, who has called for tax increases on billionaires and big businesses as the November elections approach.
A lobbying organization representing business leaders, the Business Roundtable’s members include more than 200 CEOs of the nation’s largest companies.
Notable event attendees included Apple CEO Tim Cook, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby, Proctor & Gamble CEO Jon Moeller, and Cisco Systems CEO , Chuck Robbins, according to source.
Trump’s appearance at the Business Roundtable was just one stop on his whirlwind trip to Washington, DC. He also met with members of Congress on Thursday, rallying Republican lawmakers with a unifying message ahead of the 2024 elections in November.
Many provisions of Trump’s tax law will expire in 2025. The corporate tax rate set by the legislation does not expire, but the upcoming deadline is an opportunity to raise or lower the rate.
While Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) recently told The Hill that some Republicans are open to raising corporate tax rates, others, including Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Florida), V. -chairman of the chief tax writing committee, argued that it should be cut further to attract more business and investment to the US
The Biden administration has argued that raising taxes on billionaires and big businesses would help save the government trillions of dollars over the next decade. The increase was included in the president’s budget request this year, which failed to pass in the Republican-controlled House.
A CEO asked Zients during his interview how Biden thinks corporate tax increases could affect companies’ competitiveness, another person familiar with the meeting told The Hill.
Zients said the U.S. needs more revenue and a stable fiscal situation, but the administration thinks it can do so in a way that maintains domestic competitiveness and investment.
The US national debt currently stands at US$34.7 trillion, according to data from the Treasury Department, after exceeding $34 billion for the first time in January. While the Business Roundtable agreed that the tax situation needs to be resolved, it opposed raising taxes on businesses to do so.
“The last thing policymakers should be looking to do is try to fix the fiscal situation with tax increases on corporations, because those corporations are the ones that are creating jobs, keeping America competitive, and making it possible to have a prosperous economy without which there is nothing. it can be done to improve our fiscal situation,” said Moeller, who chairs the Business Roundtable’s tax and fiscal policy committee and president, during a Business Roundtable event with reporters on Wednesday.
Alex Gangitano and Julia Shapero contributed.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
