Selling tax cuts

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By lying, as does Paul Ryan. First by comparing tax nominal rates (which few US companies pay), then by something considerably worse..

As I noted a couple weeks ago, the most common version of this talking point just compares the statutory U.S. corporate tax rate to the statutory corporate rate in other countries. This is already awfully misleading because what corporations actually pay (their effective rate) is far less than the 35 percent statutory rate, thanks to a corporate tax code riddled with loopholes. It’s hard to come up with an exact number, but studies have found effective federal corporate tax rates ranging between 12.5 and 19.4 percent—a far cry from 35 percent.

That more-common version of this talking point is bad enough, but Speaker Ryan goes on to muddy the water even further. He notes that his example business pays its taxes at the individual level. These “pass-through businesses,” whether large or small, pay zero in business or corporate income taxes. Instead, these businesses’ owners just pay tax on the income they receive from business operations through the individual tax code. This means that what Ryan is comparing at the end of his statement is the top U.S. individual tax rate (paid by less than 1 percent of taxpayers) and the Canadian corporate tax rate. This isn’t apples to oranges wrong, it’s apples to bicycles wrong..

House Speaker Paul Ryan gets innovative in spreading misleading international tax comparisons | Economic Policy Institute

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In particular, a White House official told Axios that Trump would call to end "the special-interest loopholes that have only benefited the wealthy and powerful few" so the president could pay for tax cuts.

That sounds good in the abstract. So did "insurance for everyone" that is "much less expensive and much better." We shouldn't forget he made a populist sale of his healthcare plan, too — and it stopped working once Congress started having to put details of the plan into legislative text.

Tax reform a trap for Trump, like health care - Business Insider

Haha, another con job on the way. The article is really excellent in explaining why there are few of these tax loopholes available for closing.