Why 19th-century tariff policies don’t work in 21st-century America.
Donald Trump has floated a proposal to replace the US income tax system with a new system of tariffs, moving the United States back to the tax mix of the late 19th century. The plan, simply put, is a mathematical impossibility.
Trump’s most obvious challenge would be in how to close the yawning gap between income tax revenue and duties. The U.S. Treasury collected $2.2 trillion from the individual income tax in fiscal 2023 and $80 billion from tariffs.
This is a preview of our full op-ed originally published in The Washington Post.
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