President Trump plans to cut corporate income taxes from 21% to 15%. His problem is it would increase the federal budget deficit by $1.8 trillion over 10 years. How does Trump plan to pay for these corporate tax cuts? With the revenue from his tariffs on imported goods. In his opening salvo Trump has imposed a 25% tax on all imports from Mexico and Canada except Canadian energy, which will be taxed at 10%, though they are postponed for the moment. Chinese goods will be taxed at 10%.

According to the Government Accounting Office, 34% of large profitable corporations in the U.S. do not even pay federal income taxes and those that do pay on average 9% of their profit. In contrast, the typical household pays 13% of their income. In the last five years, some of the corporations that did not pay any federal income taxes included Tesla, Ford, First Energy, Duke Energy, Next Era Energy, and T-Mobile. Remember AIG? Taxpayers bailed them out in 2008. They did not pay taxes in 2021. So, why do large corporations need another tax cut?

The increased cost of imported goods due to Trump’s tariffs will trickle down to consumers and businesses. That’s how the economy works. Items that will be affected most include fresh fruit and vegetables, cars and car parts, gasoline, heating oil, grain, meat, steel, softwood lumber, sheet rock, electronics, and toys. Consequently, new home construction is expected to become even more expensive. The cost of new cars will increase on average by $3,000. And let us not forget the folks in northern Maine who get their electricity from Canada.

To summarize — Trump plans to cut the taxes of the country’s largest corporations even lower than he did in 2017 and have you and I pay for it with higher prices. What a political con job!

George Seel

Belgrade