WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s economic adviser pushed back Thursday against the suggestion that the administration’s tax plan could benefit the wealthy, but said he couldn’t guarantee that taxes won’t go up for some middle-class families.
“I can’t guarantee anything,” Cohn told “Good Morning America” on ABC. “You can always find a unique family somewhere.”
“There’s an exception to every rule,” he added.
But he said the tax plan was “purely aimed” at benefiting middle-class families. Cohn said a hypothetical family of four should have “a substantial tax decrease,” in the range of $650 to $1,000.
Pressed on whether Trump himself could see a tax cut under the plan, Cohn said the administration was “very confident that Americans are getting a great deal here.” He added: “We have also said wealthy Americans are not getting a tax cut.”
Tax experts say several provisions in the plan — including lowering the top personal tax rate to 35 percent from 39.6 percent — make it likely that the wealthiest would enjoy the tax cut. Those provisions include a lower corporate tax rate; favorable rates for business profits used as personal income; and the elimination of both the estate tax and the “alternative minimum tax,” which was designed to ensure that the richest Americans pay at least some income tax.
At a White House briefing later in the day, Cohn said he was sticking around in the Trump administration for the “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity to help rewrite the nation’s tax laws, adding that he would “never miss this.”
Cohn had sharply denounced Trump’s response to the racial violence in Charlottesville, Va., last month. Cohn, who is Jewish, was so upset that he considered resigning, according to news reports.
The blueprint released Wednesday by Trump and congressional Republicans is a sweeping, nearly $6 trillion tax cut that would deeply reduce taxes for corporations, simplify everyone’s brackets and nearly double the standard deduction used by most Americans.
