Confusion

The latest whiner pundit to weigh in on President Donald’s tax reform principles, laid out in a concise one-pager.  And yet these pundits pretend to confusion over it.

President Donald Trump’s plan is silent so far on crucial details Americans need to calculate their tax bills, including the personal exemption and the size of the tax brackets.

And

The president’s latest plan for middle-income households…has left tax experts puzzled. That is because his one-page tax outline released in April is silent on essential details, including how the tax code will treat the personal exemption that reduces taxable income depending on family size. It sets tax brackets of 10%, 25%, and 35% without establishing the income levels that divide them.

And

[T]he plan says nothing about how personal exemptions or head-of-household filing status would be treated….

Geez.  It’s an outline; it’s not intended to be finely detailed. The President has proposed the principles and broad parameters of the taxation portion of his budget, and that’s both entirely appropriate and sufficient.  How personal exemptions, head-of-household filing status, etc, might be treated easily follows from those principles.

The fleshing out—the actual legislation, including bracket income boundaries and those other matters—is Congress’ responsibility, even though it would in an ideal world work with the President in the development of that legislation.  Oh, wait:

The White House is now working with the House and Senate on a unified GOP tax plan, including on the core issue of how much of a household’s income should go untaxed.

It seems more likely that these guys are just bellyaching because nobody is consulting their august selves.

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