White House legislative director Marc Short said Friday that the administration is determined to release the outlines of tax plan negotiated with GOP leaders by the end of the month, even as the Senate’s chief tax writer signaled that the document might not carry that much weight.
Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch of Utah said on CNBC that Senate and the House may come up with very different tax plans. “And then we’ll get together and conference them and reconcile the difference,” he said.
The gaps may be significant. Hatch and President Donald Trump appear to be of different minds on how much to cut the corporate tax rate. Trump has pushed for slashing the current 35 percent rate to 15 percent; Hatch said Friday, “I sincerely doubt we’ll be able to get to that level.” Regarding a benefit for companies to immediately write off all of their capital expenditures, which is popular in the House Ways and Means Committee, Hatch told reporters Thursday: “We will have to see.”
In a sign of the challenges ahead to reach the goal of enacting a tax overhaul by the end of the year, Hatch said, “It’s much harder than health care.”
