So maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised at the response when I filed my 92-page-long financial-disclosure forms. My net worth is in excess of $10 billion—even more than people thought.
As any accountant will tell you, it’s actually almost impossible to put down a specific number because large assets are always in flux. The total value not only changes every day—it changes every hour.
I also have significant foreign investments that are difficult to value. Plus, the forms we had to fill out weren’t designed for someone like me. There were many places on the form where the only box I could check was “$50,000,000 or more.” For example, one of my buildings is worth about $1.5 billion, but on the forms it is valued at only “$50,000,000 or more.”
We checked off a lot of boxes. Wherever possible, we were accurate to the dollar.
I am never shy about creating news by being controversial and fighting back. Remember, we need to make sure this country stands up and fights back.
I’ve held more well-attended news conferences in the past few months than any other candidate. I always draw a large crowd of journalists who are like sharks, hoping I’ll put some blood in the water.
I try to oblige.
I participated in the first Republican debate, and Fox drew the biggest audience for a news event in their history. In the second debate, CNN had the biggest audience in its history. I wonder how many people would have watched if I wasn’t involved. Not many!
16
A TAX CODE THAT WORKS
THE ONE THING THAT everybody agrees about is that our tax system doesn’t work. The current code is crazy. The federal tax code is 74,608 pages long. Nobody can really understand it, not even the accountants who try to help taxpayers fill out their forms. An entire industry springs up every year just to help Americans figure out how much money they owe to the government.
The reality is that the current tax code takes too much money from the people who need it most, while allowing others to find ways to reduce their tax burden. It discourages major corporations from reinvesting foreign profits here at home and makes it hard for small businesses to grow. It absolutely destroys jobs rather than helping create them.
A sensible tax plan would provide tax relief for middle-class Americans, allowing hardworking people to keep more of their own money; it would reduce the taxpayers’ annual anxiety and frustration by simplifying the whole tax code; it would grow the economy and create jobs by discouraging corporate inversions and make America competitive around the world; and it wouldn’t add to either our debt or deficit.
The tax reforms I’m proposing address all those problems by simplifying the tax code for everybody: My goal is to put H&R Block out of business.
I described these solutions in an op-ed piece that appeared in the Wall Street Journal in late September 2015: “Tax Reform for Security and Prosperity,” it was called.
I wrote that the top priority for the government of the United States should be to provide security for its people. That security includes removing uncertainty and making sure that the economic future of the country is assured through better deals, smarter trade agreements, and tax policies that unburden the middle class and unleash the private sector.
My approach to tax policy will do just what needs to be done. For all Americans the uncertainty and complexity of a tax code written for special interests and the very rich will be removed and a clear future will be available for all.
The plan has several goals. Let me make it clear that this set of policies takes dead aim at eliminating deductions and loopholes available to special interests and the very rich, as well as those deductions made redundant or unnecessary by the much lower tax rates every person and business will be paying.
In particular, I am proposing ending the current treatment of carried interest for hedge funds and other speculative partnerships that do not grow businesses or create jobs.
The first goal of the plan will be to provide tax relief. If you are single and earning less than $25,000 or married and earning less than $50,000, you will not owe any income tax. This will immediately remove some nearly 75 million households from the income tax rolls.
Second, the tax code will be simplified. Instead of multiple tax brackets with multiple variations, there will be only four brackets: 0%, 10%, 20%, and 25%. This new code eliminates the marriage penalty and the Alternative Minimum Tax while providing the lowest tax rates since before World War II. Further, this plan eliminates the death tax, thus allowing families to keep what has been earned.
The proposed policies will allow the middle class to keep most of their deductions while eliminating many of the deductions for the very rich. With more money in middle-class pockets, consumer spending will increase, college savings will grow, and personal debt will decline.
Third, we need to grow the American economy. For the past seven years our economy has been at a virtual standstill. Growth in the Gross Domestic Product of less than 2 percent per year is pathetic. We need to spur production, bring home jobs, and make it easier to invest in America.
The plan states that any business of any size will pay no more than 15 percent of their business income in taxes. This low rate will make corporate inversions unnecessary and will make America one of the most competitive markets in the world. This plan will also require companies with off-shore capital to bring that money back to the United States at a repatriation rate of only 10 percent. Right now that money is not being brought back because the tax rate is so high.
Finally, this plan will not add to our deficits or our national debt. With disciplined budget management and elimination of waste, fraud, and abuse, this plan will allow us to balance the budget, grow the economy at record levels, clear the backlog of workers sitting at home, and begin the process of reducing our debt. With moderate growth, this plan will be revenue neutral. These changes will ensure huge economic growth, and this country will be on the road to extraordinary prosperity.
This tax policy has the economic well-being of the country and its citizens at the forefront. This plan is bold, but it is also cast in reality and common sense. Growing the economy will provide the security we need to make America great again.
While my op-ed summed it up, there are other important points to make: When the income tax was first introduced, only one percent of Americans were taxed. It was never intended to be a tax on most Americans. Under this plan the income tax will be eliminated for nearly 75 million households, and 42 million households that now have to file complex forms that they often need expert advice just to figure out they don’t owe anything will file a one-page form that will save them time, anxiety, frustration—and more than an average of $100 in preparation costs. More than 31 million households will also use the simplified form—and they get to keep almost $1,000 of the money they have worked for.
The great reduction in rates will make a lot of the current exemptions and deductions—part of the reason the forms are so complicated—unnecessary and redundant. But the deductions for charitable donations and on mortgage interest won’t be touched. Those deductions have been very successful in accomplishing their objectives—assisting America’s charities and helping people own their own homes. It also eliminates the death tax, because you earned that money and already paid taxes on it. You saved it for your family. The government already took its bite; it isn’t entitled to more of it.