In the speech and written materials distributed by his campaign, Mr. Trump mentioned only a tax deduction. But an emailed statement from his campaign Monday afternoon said the policy would also have elements to provide child care benefits to lower-income people. The statement said it would provide “credit to stay-at-home caregivers” and that “to provide benefits to lower-income taxpayers who may not benefit from the deduction, the plan also allows parents to exclude childcare expenses from half of their payroll taxes — increasing their paycheck income each week.” 
 
 Mr. Trump also advocated reducing the corporate income tax rate to 15 percent from its current 35 percent. That proposal comes after a decade in which after-tax corporate profits have risen sharply as a share of national income and compensation for workers has fallen. 
 
 The House Republicans’ tax overhaul would reduce the number of federal income tax brackets to three (from seven) and eliminate many deductions. Mr. Trump’s embrace of it on Monday signaled that on tax policy at least, he is aiming to align himself more closely with the Republican Party. It appeared to be a change from a proposal by Mr. Trump in September, when he said he would cut the top tax rate to 25 percent from 39.6 percent. That plan has been removed from his campaign website. 
 
 “We will work with House Republicans on this plan, using the same brackets they have proposed: 12, 25 and 33 percent,” he said. “For many American workers, their tax rate will be zero.” 
 
 Mr. Trump said, accurately, that the proposal he has now adopted would reduce federal taxes across the board. But he failed to mention that the wealthy would disproportionally benefit. An analysis by the Tax Foundation found that it would increase after-tax income for middle-income families (those in the 40th to 60th percentile) by 0.2 percent. It would increase after-tax income for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans by 5.3 percent. 
 
 The conservative-leaning foundation found that the plan would reduce revenue by $2.4 trillion over the coming decade using “static analysis,” but that it would result in a comparatively modest revenue reduction of about $200 billion if you assume that lower taxes will result in much stronger economic growth. 
 
 Other elements of Mr. Trump’s economic agenda lack details that would make similar analysis possible. He proposed a moratorium on new regulations that would certainly warm the hearts of business interests that have complained of excessive regulation in the Obama era. But it is hard to know how much of a factor regulation has been in the sluggish economic growth of the last several years. ||||| poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201708/1987/1155968404_5558237370001_5558201978001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Trump’s populist message on taxes comes with heavy dose of corporate rate cuts Trump’s speech didn't mask the fact that lawmakers still face a wide range of knotty questions when they return to Washington next week. 
 
 President Donald Trump kicked off his efforts to sell a big tax package to voters on Wednesday, calling for a “pro-American” system that would cut tax rates for businesses and offer a boost to the middle class. 
 
 Trump maintained that a new tax system was crucial to ushering in a new prosperity in the U.S., in a speech that White House officials acknowledged beforehand would be light on policy details. 
 
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 The president laid out several principles for tax reform, including cleaning the code of tax breaks and offering tax relief to middle-class families. But in a speech meant to put a populist polish on tax reform, Trump also spoke repeatedly about the need to lower the statutory corporate tax rate — which, at 35 percent, stands among the highest in the industrialized world — and to give companies more opportunity to bring back profits they’ve stashed offshore. 
 
 “Instead of exporting our jobs, we will export our goods. Our jobs will both stay here in America and come back to America. We'll have it both ways,” Trump said at a Springfield, Mo., manufacturer, adding that millions of people would move from welfare to work and “will love earning a big fat beautiful paycheck.” 
 
 “We believe that ordinary Americans know better than Washington how to spend their own money and we want to help them take home as much of their money as possible and then spend it,” he said. “So they'll keep their money, they'll spend their money, they'll buy our product.” 
 
 But Trump’s speech also underscored just how big a challenge he and a Republican Congress will face in pulling off a true overhaul of the tax code. The president only briefly touched on policy details, saying that businesses would “ideally” be taxed at a top rate of 15 percent and that the tax code would contain incentives for child care — a top priority of his daughter, Ivanka Trump. 
 
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 The president also laid bare some of the tensions that have erupted between the White House and GOP lawmakers following the implosion of their efforts to repeal Obamacare. 
 
 “I am fully committed to working with Congress to get this job done,” Trump said. “And I don’t want to be disappointed by Congress. Do you understand me?” 
 
 Trump’s speech was aimed at showing that Republicans have the message down on tax reform, but lawmakers have yet to confront the monumental task of turning the rhetoric into reality. 
 
 Senior White House officials this week repeatedly billed the president’s speech as an address focused on why tax reform needs to happen, not how it will materialize. That’s the sort of big-picture cover on taxes that Trump didn’t offer congressional leaders in their doomed efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare. 
 
 But while congressional leaders undoubtedly welcome the president making the broad case for a tax revamp, Trump’s speech doesn't mask the fact that lawmakers still face a wide range of knotty questions when they return to Washington next week. 
 
 Republicans still have to figure out how to pass a budget this fall, a process that will play a big role in deciding how generous a tax plan they can write. They also have to decide whether tax changes should be permanent or temporary, or a mix of the two, and whether their plan should be a net tax cut that would add to the deficit. 
 
 And that’s before they will feel the full brunt of a massive lobbying push on what would be the first major tax overhaul in more than 30 years. Already, GOP lawmakers are starting to hear from industries that might be the losers in a tax overhaul, such as big corporations that don’t want a minimum tax on foreign earnings and a retirement sector wary of potential changes to savings plans. 
 
 The hurdles won’t be limited to policy, either, after a summer that saw both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue grow increasingly wary of the other as the GOP’s health care efforts imploded. Republicans on Capitol Hill steamed privately in July that Trump’s obsession with White House infighting and the Russia controversy was a major factor in the death of the repeal effort. They’re crossing their fingers that he won’t be so easily distracted on tax reform. 
 
 That’s because Hill Republicans will need Trump to use his bully pulpit for tax reform to cross the finish line, and GOP leaders believe Trump is uniquely able to reach the entire electorate in a way Hill leaders never could. As one House GOP leadership aide put it, the speech shows the White House is rowing in the same direction as the Hill, reassuring lawmakers that tax reform is possible. 
 
 But the ultimate test will come when the House, which is expected to move first on taxes, drops its bill. There are questions, following the health care debacle, over whether the White House will embrace the legislation as its own — or distance itself from the plan as a House effort once the critics and special interests start getting louder. 
 
 GOP leaders on the Hill say the weekly tax reform meetings with administration officials suggest that the White House and Congress will stand firm in their unity behind the jointly laid plan. Meanwhile, top Trump aides and advisers, like Gary Cohn, the director of the National Economic Council, have made it clear that lawmakers will take the lead on actually writing the tax bill. 
 
 “The administration has been very well represented in this process,” a senior White House official said Tuesday. 
 
 That unity will be tested, however, when various interests start picking apart the plan. Plenty of powerful industries could be hurt by a tax overhaul, which will undoubtedly complicate efforts to get lawmakers on board with the effort. The housing sector, for instance, is concerned about chatter that Republicans would consider both capping the mortgage interest deduction and ending the deduction for state and local taxes. The GOP is also looking at curbing the pre-tax benefits for contributing to retirement accounts, raising anxiety among that industry. 
 
 All sorts of businesses are also worried that Republicans might end the long-standing deduction for business interest, something the House GOP proposed in its blueprint last year. 
 
 The Alliance for Competitive Taxation, a coalition that includes Google, IBM and Pfizer, warned against across-the-board limits on the interest deduction in a new paper this week while also coming out against a minimum tax on offshore earnings that has gained traction since the death of the House GOP’s border adjustment. 
 
 “Imposition of a foreign minimum tax on the active business income of U.S. companies would have unintended and adverse consequences,” wrote the group, which also wants Washington to drastically cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent and to generally limit the taxation of offshore income for multinational corporations. 
 
 Beyond the policies that have yet to be ironed out, Hill Republicans still have to pass a budget in order to tackle partisan tax reform — a major hurdle in itself. 
 
 House Republicans, divided among moderates and conservatives, have been unsuccessfully trying to reach a budget deal for months. But while GOP insiders believe they’ll finally advance their fiscal blueprint in September, they’ll still need to strike a deal with Senate Republicans, whose fiscal blueprint is likely to look entirely different, sending the House back to square one. 
 
 Without a budget, Republicans would need Democrats to pass any tax bill — an uphill battle for an increasingly unpopular president, especially considering that 45 Senate Democrats have vowed not to back any measure that includes tax cuts for the wealthy or adds to the deficit. 
 
 “The millionaires and the billionaires in this country are doing just fine, God bless them, don't have any problem with that,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday in a conference call ahead of Trump’s speech. ||||| On the individual side, the plan would collapse the tax brackets from seven to three, with tax rates of 12 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent, the president said. The current top rate is 39.6 percent and the lowest rate is 10 percent. The framework also gives Congress the option of creating a higher, fourth, rate above 35 percent in the tax plan to ensure that the wealthy are paying their fair share. 
 
 The plan aims to simplify and cut taxes for the middle class by doubling the standard deduction to $12,000 for individuals and to $24,000 for married couples filing jointly. That would allow people to avoid a complicated process of itemizing their taxes to claim various credits and deductions. It would increase the child tax credit from $1,000 to an unspecified amount, and create a new $500 tax credit for non-child dependents, such as the elderly. 
 
 Provisions such as the alternative minimum tax and the estate tax, a levy on inherited wealth that Mr. Trump has derided for years, would be gone under the Republican proposal. 
 
 The proposal calls for reducing the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent, a shift that supporters say is needed to make American companies more competitive with their counterparts around the world. 
 
 A new tax rate of 25 percent would also be created for so-called pass-through businesses, such as partnerships and sole proprietorships, which are currently taxed at the rate of their owners. About 95 percent of businesses in the United States are structured as pass-throughs and they generate a majority of the government’s corporate tax revenue. 
 
 “This will be the lowest top marginal income tax rate for small and midsize businesses in this country in more than 80 years,” Mr. Trump said. 
 
 While Republican leaders claim to be united on the tax plan, they must now sell it to lawmakers who have been deeply divided this year. The push began at a House Republican retreat on Wednesday at Fort McNair in Washington, where Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the Republican chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, walked members through the blueprint and talked about the importance of coming together to fix the tax code. 
 
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 Later, in a hopeful sign for Republican leaders fretting privately about keeping their rank and file together, the conservative Freedom Caucus, whose members have derailed the party’s initiatives with hard-line demands, issued a statement of support calling the plan “forward looking” and pledging to back the party’s budget designed to ensure its passage. 
 
 The political stakes are high for a president who is desperate to score a legislative win before his first year in office draws to a close. Mr. Trump, who has eschewed the advocacy tours that his predecessors have used to build support for their top domestic priorities, made a rare direct appeal to voters during his speech, imploring them to call their representatives and senators and demand action on the tax proposal. “Let them know you’re watching,” Mr. Trump said. “Let them know you’re waiting.” 
 
 In an apparent nod to the harsh political realities the tax plan faces, Mr. Trump made an explicit overture to Democrats to support the plan. 
 
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 “Democrats and Republicans in Congress should come together, finally, to deliver this giant win for the American people,” Mr. Trump said. 
 
 But behind the scenes, Republican congressional leaders and senior White House officials have discussed bypassing Democrats and using special budget rules that would allow them to get the bill through Congress on a simple majority vote. And Mr. Trump paired his scripted talk of bipartisanship with an impromptu threat to Senator Joe Donnelly, Democrat of Indiana, saying he would personally work to defeat the senator’s re-election bid next year if he does not fall into line on the tax plan. 
 
 “If Senator Donnelly doesn’t approve it — because, you know, he’s on the other side — we will come here, we will campaign against him like you wouldn’t believe,” Mr. Trump said as Mr. Donnelly looked on from the audience. 
 
 Conservatives cheered the plan as a bold and long-awaited step to spur economic growth, while Democratic leaders condemned it as an irresponsible boon to the rich. And some budget watchdogs expressed worry about the long-term impact of a plan they said could cost more than $2 trillion over a decade. 
 
 Mr. Trump, who has broken with precedent for modern American presidents by refusing to release his tax returns, insisted that wealthy people like him would not benefit — an assertion that seemed improbable for a man who runs a family-owned real estate empire and whose children stand to inherit vast sums. 
 
 “Tax reform will protect low-income and middle-income households, not the wealthy and well-connected,” Mr. Trump said, framing a proposal that would affect hundreds of millions of Americans in terms of his own self-interest. “I’m doing the right thing, and it’s not good for me, believe me.” 
 
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 Democrats scoffed. “If this framework is all about the middle class, then Trump Tower is middle-class housing,” said Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee. “It violates Trump’s tax pledge that the rich would not gain at all under his plan by offering sweetheart deals for powerful C.E.O.s, giveaways for campaign coffers and a new way to cheat taxes for Mar-a-Lago’s loyal members.” 
 
 As with the individual side, some of the thornier business tax issues remain unaddressed. It will be left to Congress to create safeguards that prevent wealthy individuals from incorporating as pass-through businesses, which would tax their income at a lower rate. 
 
 Most itemized deductions, including those widely used for state and local tax expenses, would also be eliminated, along with most of the tax credits that businesses use. However, the plan would preserve the deductions for mortgage interest expenses and charitable giving and keep incentives for education and retirement savings plans, as well as preserve the tax credits for research and development and low-income-housing on the business side. 
 
 Another big change for companies would be a limitation of the deductibility for corporate interest expenses, in exchange for the opportunity to immediately expense business investments. The ability to immediately write off these expenses would last only five years, and the limitations for deducting interest have yet to be determined. 
 
 Perhaps the most significant, yet murky, shift is the move from a worldwide tax system to a territorial tax system for multinational corporations. In theory, this means that companies would not be taxed on their overseas earnings. But to prevent erosion of the tax base, Republicans plan to impose some form of tax on foreign profits. The transition to the new system would also include a one-time repatriation tax at yet-to-be-determined rates to encourage companies to bring offshore profits back home. 
 
 Administration officials did not provide a cost estimate for the plan. Members of the Senate Budget Committee have agreed on a budget resolution that would allow for a $1.5 trillion tax cut over 10 years. Studies of similar plans produced by Mr. Trump and House Republicans have been projected to cost $3 trillion to $7 trillion over a decade. 
 
 Republicans say economic growth will compensate for lost revenue. Senator Patrick J. Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican who sits on the Finance Committee, said he was confident that a growing economy would pay for the tax cuts. 
 
 “This tax plan will be deficit reducing,” Mr. Toomey said. ||||| NEW YORK (AP) — Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Monday proposed eliminating income taxes for millions of Americans, and lower rates for the highest-income earners, as part of a plan he said would grow the U.S. economy at a pace not seen in years. 
 
 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump talks about his tax plan during a news conference, Monday, Sept. 28, 2015, in New York. The Republican front-runner is calling for an overhaul of the tax... (Associated Press) 
 
 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump pauses while speaking about his tax plan during a news conference, Monday, Sept. 28, 2015, in New York. The Republican front-runner is calling for an overhaul... (Associated Press) 
 
 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump talks about his tax plan during a news conference, Monday, Sept. 28, 2015, in New York. The Republican front-runner is calling for an overhaul of the tax... (Associated Press) 
 
 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump talks about his tax plan during a news conference, Monday, Sept. 28, 2015, in New York. The Republican front-runner is calling for an overhaul of the tax... (Associated Press) 
 
 Trump's plan for an overhaul of the U.S. tax code would eliminate federal income taxes on individuals earning less than $25,000 and married couples earning less than $50,000. He said those individuals would receive "a new one page form to send the IRS saying, 'I win.'" 
 
 Trump's plan would also disproportionally benefit wealthy earners by lowering the highest income tax rate from 39.6 percent to 25 percent, and businesses by cutting their tax rate — from major corporations to mom-and-pop shops — to no more than 15 percent. 
 
 "There will be a major tax reduction," Trump said at a news conference at his Trump Tower skyscraper in Manhattan. "It'll simplify the tax code. It'll grow the American economy at a level that it hasn't seen for decades." 
 
 Trump said he wants to eliminate the so-called "carried interest loophole" that allows managers of hedge funds and private equity firms to pay a lower tax rate than most individuals, and would reduce or eliminating most deductions and loopholes for both individuals and corporations. "In other words, it's going to cost me a fortune," he said. 
 
 The billionaire real estate mogul said those changes would pay for the tax cuts, along with an increase in tax revenue generated by economic growth. Trump estimated that his plan would lead the economy to grow at least 3 percent a year, and as much as 5 or 6 percent — a rate of growth that most economists say is unrealistic. 
 
 Trump said his plan would also bring in new sources of revenue to the Treasury by allowing corporations to bring money held in overseas accounts back to the United States after paying a one-time tax of 10 percent. He would also prevent companies from deferring taxes paid on income earned abroad. 
 
 In sum, he says, the changes he wants to enact would not add to the annual federal budget deficit or the national debt. 
 
 "We have an amazing code," Trump said of his tax system. "It will be simple. It will be easy. It will be fair." 
 
 Trump said the plan had been crafted with the help of leading economists, but refused to say who they are during his news conference. He also said his plan didn't suit any particular political agenda, describing it as a "common sense approach." 
 
 The tax plan is the third major policy proposal from Trump, who has also outlined plans for immigration and guns. He has been criticized for failing to unveil specific policy proposals as he's risen in early preference polling. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Follow Jill Colvin on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/colvinj
– Slowly but surely, Donald Trump is bulking up the position statements on his website. His immigration and gun rights platforms have now been joined by his new tax plan, which he announced Monday in a press conference from NYC's Trump Tower, CNBC reports. "Too few Americans are working, too many jobs have been shipped overseas, and too many middle class families cannot make ends meet," notes his site, which boasts four "simple" goals to mitigate these issues: offering tax relief to the middle class, simplifying the tax code, growing the US economy, and ensuring the country doesn't add to its debt and deficit. Highlights of Trump's plan include getting rid of income taxes for individuals making less than $25,000 and married couples making less than $50,000—with those qualifying filers receiving "a new one page form to send the IRS saying, 'I win.'" (Seriously.) Tax brackets would be whittled down from the current seven to four: 0%, 10%, 20%, and 25% (down from a current high of 39.6%, the AP reports; see where you'd fall on the tax chart shown here). The blueprint also would cut business tax rates down to no more than 15%, as well as levy a one-time 10% tax on overseas profits, which Trump's campaign thinks will encourage corporations to bring money back home, the Wall Street Journal notes. Trump says the tax benefits would be funded by reducing or ending "redundant" deductions and loopholes (mostly for the wealthiest, but also in certain cases for middle-class filers), as well as from newly reaped tax revenue from a healthier economy, the AP notes. "My plan will bring sanity, common sense, and simplification to our country's catastrophic tax code," Trump said in an interview with the Journal. "It will create jobs and incentives of all kinds while simultaneously growing the economy." (Read further details about the plan here.)