Analysis: Trump tax plan would cost $9.5 trillion

Donald Trump’s tax plan would lower federal revenue by $9.5 trillion in its first decade and benefit the wealthy the most, an analysis released Tuesday found.

The Republican presidential candidate’s plan, released in September, calls for lowering the top individual tax rate to 25 percent from 39.6 percent and the corporate tax rate to 15 percent from 35 percent.

{mosads}The plan would cut the amount of money coming into the federal government. Most of the revenue loss would come from the tax cuts for individuals, but $3.5 trillion of the loss would come from business income tax cuts, the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center analysis said.

In its second decade, Trump’s plan would lead to revenue losses of $15 trillion. Taking into account additional interest costs, the proposal would add $11.2 trillion to the national debt by 2026 and $34.1 trillion by 2036, according to the report.

“The fundamental concern the plan poses is that, barring extraordinarily large cuts in government spending or future tax increases, it would yield persistently large, and likely unsustainable, budget deficits,” the group said.

While the Tax Policy Center pointed out that “Mr. Trump’s tax reform plan would boost incentives to work, save, and invest, and has the potential to simplify the tax code,” the plan could also increase incentives for workers to characterize themselves as independent contractors so they can use the lower business tax rate.

The largest tax cuts under Trump’s plan would go to the wealthy, the analysis found. The top 0.1 percent of taxpayers would receive an average tax cut of more than $1.3 million in 2017, or almost 19 percent of their after-tax income. Middle-income households would receive an average tax cut of $2,700, or 4.9 percent of their after-tax income, according to the report.

Trump’s tax plan would result in more lost revenue than the plan of presidential rival Jeb Bush, according to the Tax Policy Center. The group estimated earlier this month that Bush’s plan would reduce federal revenues by $6.8 trillion over its first decade.