WH no longer expected to release detailed tax plan; leaving it to Congress

quote:

---

The so-called Big Six -- made up of White House officials and congressional leaders involved in tax negotiations -- jointly released a two-page statement in July that outlined a broad set of agreed-upon tax principles. Specifics, including such basic matters as where to set the corporate tax rate and how to set up individual tax brackets, have yet to emerge.

Trump’s administration has sent mixed signals about how many details to expect as Congress returns from its monthlong recess next month. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said during a July interview on ABC that the objective was to have “a full-blown release of the plan” in the beginning of September. Then, a White House official said earlier this month that September would see the release of a new tax document that would provide at least some additional detail.

But congressional leaders now view the Big Six’s broad July statement as having built the four walls of the house and believe it’s the job of congressional tax writers to furnish it, according to one of the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private.

...

The change may run counter to what Trump’s advisers and GOP lawmakers have called the importance of having a unified plan among the White House, the Senate and the House -- a lesson they learned from the failure of legislation aimed at repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.

It’s also a departure from former White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s comments in March that the Trump administration would be “driving the train” on efforts to rewrite the tax code. The president is involved but isn’t expected to make any imminent tax announcements, according to a White House official.

National Economic Council Gary Cohn had said previously that a tax framework would be released after Labor Day. More recently, he indicated the White House was pushing tax efforts back to the hill.

“Remember, tax legislation starts in the House,” Cohn said at a press conference Aug. 15. “We’ve got a great, I would say, skeleton. We need the Ways and Means Committee to put some muscle and skin on the skeleton and drive tax reform forward.”

---