Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Explainer: What you should know about Trump’s tax reform framework
Explainer: What you should know about Trump’s tax reform framework
Mar 15, 2026 5:52 PM

Later today in a speech in Indiana, President Trump will outline his tax reform framework. Here’s what you should know about the president’s plan:

What are the goals of the tax reform framework?

Trump’s tax plan has four stated goals:

1. Make the tax code simple, fair and easy to understand.

2. Give American workers a pay raise by allowing them to keep more of their hard-earned paychecks.

3. Make America the jobs magnet of the world by leveling the playing field for American businesses and workers.

4. Bring back trillions of dollars that are currently kept offshore to reinvest in the American economy.

How does the plan affect individual taxpayers?

The framework proposes the following changes:

• The standard deduction would increase from $6,300 to $12,000 for single filers and from $12,600 to $24,000 for married couples.The additional standard deduction and personal exemptions for the taxpayer and spouse are consolidated into this larger standard deduction.

• Creates a larger “zero tax bracket” by eliminating taxes on the first $24,000 of e earned by a married couple and $12,000 earned by a single individual.

• Reduces the 7 tax brackets (10, 15, 25, 28, 33, 35, and 39.6 percent) to 3 tax brackets of 12 percent, 25 percent, and 35 percent. (An additional top rate may apply to the e taxpayers to ensure that the reformed tax code is at least as progressive as the existing tax code.)

• Increases the Child Tax Credit and make the first $1,000 of the credit refundable.

• Provides a non-refundable credit of $500 for non-child dependents to help defray the cost of caring for other dependents.

• Repeals the existing individual Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).

• Eliminates most itemized deductions (such as deductions for state and local taxes), but retains tax incentives for home mortgage interest and charitable contributions.

• Promises to retain “tax benefits that encourage work, higher education and retirement security.”

• Promises to repeal many exemptions, deductions and credits to “make the system simpler and fairer for all families and individuals, and allow for lower tax rates.”

• Repeals the “death tax”, the federal estate tax applies to the transfer of property at death, that applies to estates worth $5,490,000 or more.

How does the plan affect individual businesses?

The framework proposes the following changes:

• Limits the maximum tax rate applied to the business e of small and family-owned businesses conducted as sole proprietorships, partnerships and S corporations to 25 percent.

• Reduces the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent.

• Eliminates the existing corporate Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).

• Allows businesses to immediately write off (or “expense”) the cost of new investments in depreciable assets other than structures made after September 27, 2017, for at least five years.

• The deduction for net interest expense incurred by C corporations will be partially limited.

• Preserves business credits for research and development (R&D) and e housing.

• Promises to “modernize” the rules for the special tax regimes the currently exist to govern the tax treatment of certain industries and sectors.

• In an effort to bring overseas corporate profits back into the U.S., all overseas assets from panies will be considered repatriated and taxed at a one-time lower rate. (The rate will be specified at a later date.)

How does this plan differ from the proposal outlined by President Trump during the campaign?

The new plan includes five items that Trumppromised on the campaign trail: reducing the tax brackets, increasing the standard deduction, reducing business tax (though he promised a reduction to 15 percent), and eliminating the AMT and estate tax.

However, Trump’s campaign plan promised to be “revenue neutral” (i.e., would not increase the deficit), a claim which few economists outside of the White House believes is possible.

What happens next?

The president’s framework will now go to the mittees with jurisdiction over tax legislation (the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee) to be turned into workable bill. Then Congressional Republicans will attempt to pass the tax reform bill via the budget reconciliation process.

By using budget reconciliation, the GOP can limit the number of debates and amendments on the bill and it can be passed with a simple majority of 51 votes.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Jordan Peterson on the universal basic income
As we enter a new age of automation and artificial intelligence, fears about job loss and human obsolescence are troubling the cultural imagination. Prosperity abounds, but innovators like Elon Musk and Bill Gates continue to predict a future where humans steadily diminish in their contributions, ing ever more dependent on external sources of provision. As a result, many have hitched their hopes to a universal basic e – a form of widespread welfare in which regular cash transfers are guaranteed...
China’s crackdown knocks Hong Kong off list of economically free nations
One of the perennial realities of modern history is that Hong Kong ranks near the top of any list of the most economically free nations. But 2020 altered history in many unforeseen ways. For the first time ever, Hong Kong did not appear on the Heritage Foundation’s 2021 Index of Economic Freedom at all. Heritage’s annual report explains that the tally includes only “independent countries where governments exercise sovereign control of economic policies,” so it must exclude Hong Kong and...
How does human work further human dignity?
For all the claims regarding the subjectivity of economics, including schools of thought that emphasize subjective value theory and the descriptive rather than the normative, much mainstream economic thought focuses on what seems to be objective and measurable. Take the case of labor economics and related policy discussions, such as the recently debated proposals surrounding child tax and the earned e tax credits. The focus in these discussions is almost always and exclusively about what can be measured – that...
FAQ: What is the Jewish holiday of Passover?
On the Jewish calendar, Passover (or “Pesach” in Hebrew) is always celebrated between the 15th and 22nd day of the month of Nissan. What is this Jewish holy day, and how is it celebrated? What does memorate? The feast of memorates the liberation of Israel from slavery in Egypt during the Exodus. When Pharaoh resisted the mandment to “let my people go,” the Lord visited 10 increasingly deadly plagues on the Egyptians: rivers turned into blood, frogs, lice, flies, killing...
Murray Rothbard on Christianity, Catholicism, and theology
A hidden gem of Murray Rothbard’s thinking on the “Whig Theory of History” was published by the Mises Institute here in 2010. This publication was excerpted from an edited transcript of “Ideology and Theories of History” (ITH), the first in a series of six lectures on the history of economic thought given by Rothbard in 1986, published here in 2006. ITH also contained hidden gold regarding his thoughts about Christianity and Catholicism in relation to history, economics, and liberty. In...
Jubilee and Social Justice: A dangerous quest to overcome social inequalities
Kim Tan. Jubilee and social justice: A dangerous quest to e inequalities. Abingdon Press. 2021. 102 pages. Kim Tan, the co-founder of the Transformational Business Network, has just published his latest book: Jubilee and Social Justice. It is a must-read for social impact entrepreneurs like Tan who, in the subtitle, calls the Jubilee adventure a “dangerous quest.” He dares heroic-minded Christians to resurrect this forgotten ordinance of the Old Covenant. For those who have never seriously practiced the Jubilee principles...
Rev. Robert Sirico on Ayn Rand’s search for God
“Who is John Galt?” That line, which motivated millions of readers to slog their way through Ayn Rand’s tome Atlas Shrugged, is more than a plea to establish someone’s identity; it embodies Rand’s longing for the transcendent One, according to Rev. Robert A. Sirico. The Acton Institute’s co-founder fleshed out his case when he sat down with David L. Bahnsen for the podcast Capital Record. Episode 9 is aptly titled, “Ayn Rand meets religion.” Who was Rand searching for when...
‘Jesus was a political revolutionary’: Ibram X. Kendi ‘rejects’ orthodox Christianity
The best-selling author of How to be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi, has admitted that his so-called “antiracist” movement believes that Jesus was a political “revolutionary” and that trying to “save” souls is “racist theology” which only “breeds bigotry.” Kendi’s excoriation of Christian e in a newly resurfaced video shot in 2019, inside a church, responding to an audience member who asks about “any role that churches munities of faith can play in this antiracist movement.” “Jesus was a revolutionary,...
Equity? New bill could kick minority teachers out of the classroom
Lawmakers in Minnesota, the crucible of last summer’s deadly riots, have made a concerted effort to increase the number of minorities teaching in the public schools. That goal is on a collision course with a bill that would cut off pathways to ing a teacher and could throw more minority teachers out of work than the state recruits. Supporters say the “Increase Teachers of Color Act of 2021” (House File 217) focuses on recruiting and retaining “teachers of color and...
The Suez Canal blockage: a metaphor for our economy
A team of engineers and an unusually high tide freed the Ever Given, the container ship that blocked the Suez Canal for six days, on Monday. Obstructing the canal that facilitates 13% of world’s maritime trade not only educated Americans about the international dimensions of our economy, it also served as a metaphor for the artificial constraints, taxes, and regulations that block so many people from participating in our economy. “Engineers raced throughout Monday to finish the job of dislodging...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved