Dec. 12 (UPI) — The Treasury Department released a one-page analysis of the Republican-led Senate tax plan Monday that says the plan will pay for itself if the economy grows according to Trump administration predictions.
The GOP tax plan cuts $1.5 trillion in taxes over the next 10 years and the Treasury Department’s one-page analysis estimates that $1.8 trillion in revenue will be generated over that time if the administration’s proposals on individual tax reform, regulatory reform, infrastructure development and welfare reform all get put into law.
“Adding this $1.8 trillion of incremental revenue to the static current law score of $1.5 trillion results in total receipts over the 10-year window increasing by $300 billion,” the Treasury Department’s memo states. “These increased receipts are primarily collected in the last five years, as full expensing creates growth in early years but results in a deferral of collection of taxes.”
Conservative tax experts criticized the memo for containing too many hypothetical scenarios to be a clear analysis of the major tax overhaul that will be up for a vote in the Senate.
“The report does not appear to be a projection of the economic effects of a tax bill,” Scott Greenberg, a tax analyst at the conservative Tax Foundation, told The New York Times. “It appears, on the other hand, to be a thought experiment on how federal revenues would vary under different economic effects of overall government policies. Which is, needless to say, an odd way to analyze a tax bill.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., blasted the memo on Twitter, calling it a “bogus report” and seized on the 2.9 percent GDP growth prediction the Treasury Department used to attain its final numbers. She said most economists believe a generous GDP growth over the next 10 years will be only 2.2 percent.
“The @USTreasury report says that IF economic growth is 2.9% instead of 2.2% over the next ten years, then the national debt will go down despite the GOP plan’s massive tax giveaway to big corporations. Oh really?” Warren tweeted. “But how does the report show that economic growth WILL be 2.9% instead of 2.2% thanks to the GOP tax plan? It doesn’t! Instead, @USTreasury ‘expects approximately half’ of this additional growth to come from corporate tax changes.”
“We acknowledge that some economists predict different growth rates,” the Treasury Department states in the memo.
