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Trump Says G.O.P. Tax Bill Won’t Benefit Him. That’s Not True. - The New York Times

posted onDecember 1, 2017
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Article snippet: President Trump likes to argue that the tax-reform legislation hurtling through Congress this week will protect low- and middle-income households, “not the wealthy and well connected.” He puts himself forward as Exhibit A. “This is going to cost me a fortune,” he said on Wednesday in Missouri. “This is not good for me.” So surely at least a few of the most egregious loopholes that benefit Mr. Trump and real estate developers like him will be closed. Not in the slightest. In fact, the proposals seem almost tailor-made to enrich the president and people like him. “Commercial real estate came out essentially unscathed,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, a conservative advocacy group. Real estate developers “didn’t lose anything they care about,” and they got even more breaks, like a shorter depreciation schedule in the Senate tax bill, Mr. Holtz-Eakin pointed out. Mr. Trump still has not released his tax returns, so it’s impossible to know to what extent he would personally benefit from the legislation. But there’s little doubt that he would. “Lower pass-through rates and the repeal of the alternative minimum tax — those two alone are so hugely beneficial to Trump that I have trouble imagining any way that he wouldn’t come out ahead,” said Steve Wamhoff, senior fellow for federal tax policy at the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. (The pass-through reference involves income that typically comes from partnerships a... Link to the full article to read more

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