Mulvaney Says Trump Tax Plan Details Won't Be Ready Until June

(Bloomberg) -- The White House will offer “specific governing principles’’ for its tax plan this week along with indications of what new rates would be, but a complete proposal probably won’t be ready until June, President Donald Trump’s budget director said.

Trump has promised news about his tax plan on Wednesday, telling his 28 million Twitter followers on Saturday that a “Big TAX REFORM AND TAX REDUCTION will be announced’’ on April 26.

“What you’re going to see on Wednesday is for the first time is, here’s what our principles are, here are some of the ideas that we like, some of the ideas we don’t like, and we can talk about that more if you want to,’’ Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said on “Fox News Sunday.’’ “Here are some of the rates we’re talking about.’’

Asked about his previous comments that the full plan with bill language probably won’t be released until June, Mulvaney said “that’s still probably fair. ” The administration has started working with House and Senate committees “as we try and build some momentum for this tax plan,” he said.

Mulvaney said the administration hasn’t decided whether its plan will be revenue neutral, which would be needed to meet the criteria set by lawmakers to make tax changes permanent, or will add to the national debt.

For more on the debate over revenue neutrality, click here.

“You can either have a small tax cut that’s permanent or a large tax cut that is short-term,’’ Mulvaney said. “I don’t think we decided that. But you’ll know more on Wednesday.’’

Bloomberg News reported on Friday that Trump’s plan probably won’t include a border-adjusted tax, or BAT, suggesting the president’s proposed measures won’t be revenue neutral. That’s because the border tax that House Speaker Paul Ryan has proposed would generate more than $1 trillion in revenue over a decade, helping to offset the cost of individual and corporate rate cuts.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and other senior officials have signaled that the administration is more concerned about growth and job creation and will rely on so-called dynamic scoring rather than revenue neutrality in crafting its changes.

Under dynamic scoring, a tax plan’s revenue effects are considered in the context of the plan’s impact on economic growth and consumer well-being. The process can be contentious -- economists disagree on the best ways to predict such effects -- but Mnuchin has repeatedly emphasized its importance to the Trump plan.

“Some of the lowering in rates is going to be offset by less deductions and simpler taxes,” Mnuchin said on Saturday. “But the majority of it will be made up” by dynamic scoring.

Trump said in a Feb. 28 tweet that his tax plan “will reduce the tax rate on our companies & provide massive tax relief for the middle class.”

--With assistance from Lynnley Browning and Rich Miller

To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Niquette in Columbus at mniquette@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joshua Gallu at jgallu@bloomberg.net, Ros Krasny, Bernard Kohn