Trump’s Tax and Tariff Ideas: Details & Analysis
A new trade war could wipe out the benefits of pro-growth tax reform.
6 min readFormer President Trump has proposed a number of tax proposals, including imposing a universal baseline tariff on all U.S. imports, imposing a 60 percent tariff on all U.S. imports from China, making the individual and estate tax cuts of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) permanent, maintaining the 21 percent corporate income tax rate, and making all tip income tax-exempt. From analyzing the economic impact of US tariffs and retaliatory actions to the upcoming TCJA expirations, Tax Foundation experts continue to serve as trusted thought leaders, providing research, modeling, analysis, and commentary on how the Trump tax proposals would impact U.S. competitiveness, economic growth, government revenue, and everyday taxpayers. The posts below include our research and analysis on a variety of Trump tax proposals. You can also explore our economic modeling via Options for Reforming America’s Tax Code and our 10 Tax Reforms for Growth and Opportunity. See the latest proposals from 2024 presidential candidates, including Vice President Harris, with our 2024 tax tracker
A new trade war could wipe out the benefits of pro-growth tax reform.
6 min read“No tax on tips” might be a catchy idea on the campaign trail. But it could create plenty of headaches, from figuring out tips on previously untipped services to an unexpectedly large loss of federal revenue.
6 min readFormer President Trump floated the possibility of entirely replacing the federal income tax with new tariffs. He also raised other ideas like eliminating taxes on tipped income and lowering the corporate tax rate by one percentage point.
8 min readTax policy has become a significant focus of the U.S. 2024 presidential election. Our new interactive tool helps keep track of the tax policies proposed by presidential candidates during their campaigns.
The Trump campaign is mulling a massive tax increase on American purchases from China. If reelected, he might quintuple the tax, imposing tariffs of 60 percent on imports from China. The economic ramifications would be significant and unwelcome.
5 min readIf reelected, President Trump would drastically escalate the trade war he started during his first term. But what often goes unnoticed is President Biden’s role in continuing Trump’s first trade war. In fact, more tax revenue from the trade war tariffs has been collected under Biden than under Trump.
5 min readThe Trump administration imposed nearly $80 billion worth of new taxes on Americans by levying tariffs on thousands of products in 2018 and 2019, amounting to one of the largest tax increases in decades. The Biden administration has kept most of the Trump administration tariffs in place
19 min readPolicymakers should have two priorities in the upcoming economic policy debates: a larger economy and fiscal responsibility. Principled, pro-growth tax policy can help accomplish both.
21 min readUnless Congress acts, Americans are in for a tax hike in 2026.
3 min readUtah is the only state to earmark the entirety of one of its major taxes, but a measure on the ballot this November might change that.
4 min readAllowing full deductibility of residential structures would mean more housing construction, particularly multifamily housing—a practical solution to address housing affordability challenges.
6 min readThe sales tax is the second-largest source of state tax revenue and an important source of local tax revenue, but decades of base erosion threaten the tax’s share of overall revenue and have prompted years of countervailing rate increases.
72 min readIn her campaign for president, VP Kamala Harris has embraced all the tax increases President Biden proposed in the White House FY 2025 budget—including a new idea that would require taxpayers with net wealth above $100 million to pay a minimum tax on their unrealized capital gains from assets such as stocks, bonds, or privately held companies.
5 min readLawmakers should consider compliance costs—not just tax liabilities—when evaluating reforms to business income taxation.
22 min readEliminating the property tax will unfortunately set North Dakota back in significant ways, making the state a national outlier and eroding regional competitiveness.
6 min readWorld War II shaped many aspects of the modern world, including the US tax code. But the dramatic changes to our system that military mobilization required didn’t subside when the fighting finished; they’ve persisted to today.
4 min readStates would do better to broaden the sales tax base to include currently exempt classes of final consumption than to impose disproportionate taxes on prepared foods.
6 min readIf lawmakers are convinced that new revenues must be part of any long-term effort to solve the budget crisis or offset the cost of extending the TCJA, they must choose the least harmful ways of raising new revenues or else risk undermining their efforts by slowing economic growth.
7 min readWhen the government imposes a tariff, it may be trading jobs and production in one part of the economy for jobs in another part of the economy by increasing production costs for downstream industries.
6 min read