January, 18 2017, 10:15am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Ron Eckstein, Communications Director, Americans for Tax Fairness
Trump's Proposed Treasury Secretary Could Get $3.3 Million Tax Cut Annually from Trump Tax Plan
Mnuchin’s claim that “[t]here will be no absolute tax cut for the upper class” under Trump’s tax plan is disproven by his potential big windfall
WASHINGTON
Americans for Tax Fairness estimates that Steven T. Mnuchin, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for U.S. Treasury Secretary, could slash his personal tax bill by up to roughly $3.3 million a year should Trump's tax plan become law. He would save similar amounts if House Speaker Paul Ryan's tax plan were enacted. Repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) alone could cut Mnuchin's taxes by up to about $500,000 a year by eliminating two Medicare taxes on high-income filers.
These estimates are based on the income and assets revealed in Mnuchin's recent financial disclosure statement filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. ATF's analysis of Mnuchin's income between 2015 and 2016, and his financial assets and their current value, is available here.
ATF's analysis of Mnuchin's financial disclosure form shows:
- Mnuchin is easily among the highest-income one-tenth of one percent of Americans. His income was between $52.7 million and $71.6 million over the two-year period 2015-16, or $26.3 million to $35.8 million a year. (The varied estimates are due to the income ranges provided in financial disclosures.) His total assets appear to be valued at between $166 million and $397 million, assuming there is no double-counting in the financial disclosure. He is therefore positioned to benefit handsomely from Trump's proposed major tax overhaul and plan to repeal the ACA. These would both result in deep tax cuts heavily tilted toward the rich, and Mnuchin would spearhead the effort as Treasury Secretary.
- Mnuchin could slash his tax bill by about $2.5 million to $3.3 million a year should Trump's broader tax plan become law and his income remain at the level it's been in recent years. Mnuchin would save similar amounts if House Speaker Paul Ryan's tax plan were enacted. [See Table below] These estimates are based on the tax cut that the non-partisan Tax Policy Center has estimated the richest 0.1% would receive under the Trump and Ryan tax plans in 2017--a 9.3 percentage-point cut in the share of their income paid in federal taxes under Trump's plan and an 11.1 percentage-point cut under Ryan's plan. (These are conservative estimates for Mnuchin. His income is far above the average for the top 0.1%, therefore his percentage tax cut is also likely to be above average since Trump's tax plan highly favors the wealthiest households.)
- Republican lawmakers' efforts to repeal the ACA could slash Mnuchin's annual tax bill by roughly $345,000 to $510,000 by eliminating two Medicare taxes that are assessed on the richest 2%--the additional 0.9% Hospital Insurance tax and the 3.8% Medicare tax on unearned income. ACA repeal threatens the health care of 30 million Americans and would erode some rare progress made recently to reverse America's growing economic inequality.
- Mnuchin would benefit particularly from two tax cuts in the Trump and Ryan tax plans that are especially tilted towards the very wealthy:
- Mnuchin gets income from or has assets in at least 66 pass-through entities, valued between $34 million and $135 million and generating income of between $5.2 million and $13.9 million from 2015 to 2016. Pass-throughs include partnerships, limited partnerships, limited liability companies, and other forms of business in which the owners pay the firm's taxes on their own returns at individual rates. Pass-through income is even more concentrated among very high-income households than is business income generally. Trump's tax plan proposes to slash the tax rate on pass-throughs to as low as 15%, from the current top tax rate of 39.6%, which would undoubtedly result in a huge windfall for Mnuchin.
- Mnuchin's heirs could save tens of millions of dollars, perhaps over $100 million, if Trump succeeds in eliminating the estate tax. If Forbes magazine is correct in its $300 million estimate of Mnuchin's net worth, then abolishing the 40% tax on the wealthiest 0.2% of estates could increase the inheritances of Mnuchin's family by as much as $120 million. ATF's estimate that Mnuchin's assets could be worth up to nearly $400 million could mean a tax break for his heirs of up to $160 million.
"Steven Mnuchin' has stated that under Trump's tax plan '[t]here will be no absolute tax cut for the upper class,'" said Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness. "But that's at complete odds with the tax plans proposed by candidate Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan. At his confirmation hearing, Mnuchin should be grilled about how as Treasury Secretary he would fix those plans so that they meet his test. Given how much Mnuchin stands to personally gain from these tax plans, the public may view Mnuchin's confirmation as Treasury Secretary as akin to having the bank robber guard the bank."
Clemente continued: "The enormous tax breaks that will be given to Mnuchin and other wealthy Americans by repealing the ACA and enacting the Trump tax plan are a betrayal of working families. Mnuchin and his friends on Wall Street get a huge tax cut, but millions of families lose their health care. Mnuchin needs to answer the question: 'What will you do as Treasury Secretary to keep your pledge to working families that there 'will be no absolute tax cut for the upper class?'"
Estimated Tax Savings for Steven Mnuchin from Trump and House GOP Tax Plans
Mnuchin total annual income, low estimate: $26,345,000 | ||||||||||
Mnuchin total annual income, high estimate: $35,778,000 | ||||||||||
Trump Tax Plan 2017 | House GOP | |||||||||
Top 0.1 percent income threshold | $3,750,000 | $3,750,000 | ||||||||
Top 0.1 percent average income | $11,430,000 | $11,430,000 | ||||||||
Top 0.1 percent average percentage point tax cut | 9.3% | 11.1% | ||||||||
Mnuchin tax cut, based on lower income estimate | $2,450,000 | $2,924,000 | ||||||||
Mnuchin tax cut, based on higher income estimate | $3,327,000 | $3,971,000 | ||||||||
Sources: | ||||||||||
Income: Americans for Tax Fairness calculations based on Mnuchin's financial disclosure report filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, Jan. 10, 2017 and available here. Tax Cuts: Estimates based on Tax Policy Center analyses of Trump and Ryan tax plans.[i] Trump tax plan is available here. House GOP tax plan is available here. |
[i]The calculations are based on Tax Policy Center estimates of how much the average taxpayer in the top 0.1% would save under the GOP plans. Mnuchin's income and therefore estimated tax savings are expressed in ranges because the financial disclosure form allows for data to be reported in such bands. However, over 80% of the lower estimate is based on almost $42 million of precisely identified income figures. Moreover, the estimates are conservative in that the size of the tax cuts in TPC's estimates rise with incomes, and Mnuchin's income exceeds the average income of the top 0.1 percent.
Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) is a diverse campaign of more than 420 national, state and local endorsing organizations united in support of a fair tax system that works for all Americans. It has come together based on the belief that the country needs comprehensive, progressive tax reform that results in greater revenue to meet our growing needs. This requires big corporations and the wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes, not to live by their own set of rules.
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Defeating 'MAGA Dark Money,' Summer Lee Wins Primary in Landslide
"This is a huge testament to our collective strength and resilience as a progressive movement," said the executive director of Justice Democrats.
Apr 24, 2024
U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, a member of the progressive "Squad," won the Democratic primary for Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional District on Tuesday, fending off an opponent whose campaign was backed by a billionaire Republican megadonor and ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Lee, a vocal critic of the Netanyahu government and leading supporter of a cease-fire in Gaza, handily defeated Bhavini Patel, a borough councilmember in Edgewood, Pennsylvania whose effort to unseat the progressive incumbent was bankrolled by Jeffrey Yass, the state's richest man. Patel actively courted Republican and pro-Israel voters, characterizing Lee as "fringe."
With more than 95% of the vote counted, Lee is ahead of Patel by more than 20 percentage points.
"I am so humbled and proud to win my first primary reelection to be the congresswoman for this incredible district I've spent my life fighting for," Lee said after the race was called in her favor. "Our campaign was built on a record of delivering for our democracy, defending our most fundamental rights, and expanding our vision for what is politically possible for our region's most marginalized communities."
"Our victory is a rejection of right-wing interests and Republican billionaires using corporate super PACs to target Black and brown Democrats in our primaries—be it AIPAC or Moderate PAC or any other MAGA billionaire in Democratic clothing," Lee added. "Western PA is the blueprint for the future all of America deserves."
Opposing genocide is good politics and good policy. #CeasefireNOW https://t.co/A7pnJNskWS
— Summer Lee (@SummerForPA) April 24, 2024
Through the misleadingly named Moderate PAC, Yass—a prolific tax dodger who has been floated as a possible treasury secretary pick if former President Donald Trump wins another term—spent hundreds of thousands of dollars boosting Patel and attacking Lee.
Rahna Epting, executive director of MoveOn Political Action, said that by ushering Lee to victory, residents of Pennsylvania's 12th District "soundly rejected MAGA dark money."
"MoveOn members are ready to defeat this dangerous flood of dark-money spending against progressive champions and ensure that we continue to elect working-class people to Congress," said Epting.
"Now that it's clear Summer won her primary, AIPAC's super PAC has already officially failed at their one goal for this cycle: taking out the entire Squad."
During her 2022 campaign, Lee faced and overcame huge spending by the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC via its super PAC, the United Democracy Project. But the organization opted to stay on the sidelines this time around, even as it plans to spend $100 million to defeat progressives in this year's cycle amid growing public opposition to Israel's war on Gaza.
"They had every intention of spending in this race—but they didn't, because they realized they would likely lose," Justice Democrats executive director Alexandra Rojas wrote in an email late Tuesday. "And that is because all of us had Summer's back and supported her campaign to out-organize AIPAC in every way."
"This is a huge testament to our collective strength and resilience as a progressive movement," said Rojas. "Now that it's clear Summer won her primary, AIPAC's super PAC has already officially failed at their one goal for this cycle: taking out the entire Squad."
While AIPAC ultimately sat out the Pennsylvania race, it is devoting considerable resources to ousting other progressive lawmakers, including Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.).
The pro-Israel lobbying group has endorsed Bush challenger Wesley Bell, calling him a "strong advocate for the U.S.-Israel relationship." As The Guardianreported last week, Bell has "raised more than $650,000 in earmarked contributions through the group Democracy Engine Inc. PAC—a donation platform that allows unpopular PACs to obscure their donations and lists AIPAC as a client on its LinkedIn page."
AIPAC is the largest donor to Bowman challenger George Latimer, who has supported Israel's war on Gaza and denied that Israel is committing genocide. The Democratic primary for New York's 16th Congressional District is on June 25.
We must be clear-eyed about what's next. @JamaalBowmanNY & @CoriBush are facing an existential threat from AIPAC, their GOP megadonors, and the politicians willing to compromise on core Democratic values to try to take a school principal & nurse out of Congress. #ProtectTheSquad
— Justice Democrats (@justicedems) April 24, 2024
Michele Weindling, political director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, said Tuesday that following Lee's victory, "we're ramping up to take on AIPAC in Jamaal Bowman's race."
"With a candidate like George Latimer willing to sell their lies to the district, we are going to prove once again that a politician's commitment to their community beats dark money every time," said Weindling. "Whether it's in Pittsburgh or New York, Minneapolis or St. Louis, our generation is going to send billionaires packing and reelect the squad."
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Environmental defenders on Tuesday ripped the company behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline for asking the federal government—on Earth Day—for permission to start sending methane gas through the 303-mile conduit despite a worsening climate emergency caused largely by burning fossil fuels.
Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC sent a letter Monday to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Acting Secretary Debbie-Anne Reese seeking final permission to begin operation on the MVP next month, even while acknowledging that much of the Virginia portion of the pipeline route remains unfinished and developers have yet to fully comply with safety requirements.
"In a manner typical of its ongoing disrespect for the environment, Mountain Valley Pipeline marked Earth Day by asking FERC for authorization to place its dangerous, unnecessary pipeline into service in late May," said Jessica Sims, the Virginia field coordinator for Appalachian Voices.
"MVP brazenly asks for this authorization while simultaneously notifying FERC that the company has completed less than two-thirds of the project to final restoration and with the mere promise that it will notify the commission when it fully complies with the requirements of a consent decree it entered into with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration last fall," she continued.
"Requesting an in-service decision by May 23 leaves the company very little time to implement the safety measures required by its agreement with PHMSA," Sims added. "There is no rush, other than to satisfy MVP's capacity customers' contracts—a situation of the company's own making. We remain deeply concerned about the construction methods and the safety of communities along the route of MVP."
Russell Chisholm, co-director of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR) Coalition—which called MVP's request "reckless and impossible"—said in a statement that "we are watching our worst nightmare unfold in real-time: The reckless MVP is barreling towards completion."
"During construction, MVP has contaminated our water sources, destroyed our streams, and split the earth beneath our homes. Now they want to run methane gas through their degraded pipes and shoddy work," Chisholm added. "The MVP is a glaring human rights violation that is indicative of the widespread failures of our government to act on the climate crisis in service of the fossil fuel industry."
POWHR and activists representing frontline communities affected by the pipeline are set to take part in a May 8 demonstration outside project financier Bank of America's headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Appalachian Voices noted that MVP's request comes days before pipeline developer Equitrans Midstream is set to release its 2024 first-quarter earnings information on April 30.
MVP is set to traverse much of Virginia and West Virginia, with the Southgate extension running into North Carolina. Outgoing U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and other pipeline proponents fought to include expedited construction of the project in the debt ceiling deal negotiated between President Joe Biden and congressional Republicans last year.
On Monday, climate and environmental defenders also petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, challenging FERC's approval of the MVP's planned Southgate extension, contending that the project is so different from original plans that the government's previous assent is now irrelevant.
"Federal, state, and local elected officials have spoken out against this unneeded proposal to ship more methane gas into North Carolina," said Sierra Club senior field organizer Caroline Hansley. "The time to build more dirty and dangerous pipelines is over. After MVP Southgate requested a time extension for a project that it no longer plans to construct, it should be sent back to the drawing board for this newly proposed project."
David Sligh, conservation director at Wild Virginia, said: "Approving the Southgate project is irresponsible. This project will pose the same kinds of threats of damage to the environment and the people along its path as we have seen caused by the Mountain Valley Pipeline during the last six years."
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Others renewed warnings about the dangers MVP poses to wildlife.
"The endangered bats, fish, mussels, and plants in this boondoggle's path of destruction deserve to be protected from killing and habitat destruction by a project that never received proper approvals in the first place," Center for Biological Diversity attorney Perrin de Jong said. "Our organization will continue fighting this terrible idea to the bitter end."
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Advocates praised the FTC "for taking a strong stance against this egregious use of corporate power, thereby empowering workers to switch jobs and launch new ventures, and unlocking billions of dollars in worker earnings."
Apr 23, 2024
U.S. workers' rights advocates and groups celebrated on Tuesday after the Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 along party lines to approve a ban on most noncompete clauses, which Democratic FTC Chair Lina Khansaid "keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism."
"The FTC's final rule to ban noncompetes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market," Khan added, pointing to the commission's estimates that the policy could mean another $524 for the average worker, over 8,500 new startups, and 17,000 to 29,000 more patents each year.
As Economic Policy Institute (EPI) president Heidi Shierholz explained, "Noncompete agreements are employment provisions that ban workers at one company from working for, or starting, a competing business within a certain period of time after leaving a job."
"These agreements are ubiquitous," she noted, applauding the ban. "EPI research finds that more than 1 out of every 4 private-sector workers—including low-wage workers—are required to enter noncompete agreements as a condition of employment."
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has suggested it plans to file a lawsuit that, as The American Prospectdetailed, "could more broadly threaten the rulemaking authority the FTC cited when proposing to ban noncompetes."
Already, the tax services and software provider Ryan has filed a legal challenge in federal court in Texas, arguing that the FTC is unconstitutionally structured.
Still, the Democratic commissioners' vote was still heralded as a "seismic win for workers." Echoing Khan's critiques of such noncompetes, Public Citizen executive vice president Lisa Gilbert declared that such clauses "inflict devastating harms on tens of millions of workers across the economy."
"The pervasive use of noncompete clauses limits worker mobility, drives down wages, keeps Americans from pursuing entrepreneurial dreams and creating new businesses, causes more concentrated markets, and keeps workers stuck in unsafe or hostile workplaces," she said. "Noncompete clauses are both an unfair method of competition and aggressively harmful to regular people. The FTC was right to tackle this issue and to finalize this strong rule."
Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project, praised the FTC for "listening to the comments of thousands of entrepreneurs and workers of all income levels across industries" and finalizing a rule that "is a clear-cut win."
Demand Progress' Emily Peterson-Cassin similarly commended the commission "for taking a strong stance against this egregious use of corporate power, thereby empowering workers to switch jobs and launch new ventures, and unlocking billions of dollars in worker earnings."
While such agreements are common across various industries, Teófilo Reyes, chief of staff at the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, said that "many restaurant workers have been stuck at their job, earning as low as $2.13 per hour, because of the noncompete clause that they agreed to have in their contract."
"They didn't know that it would affect their wages and livelihood," Reyes stressed. "Most workers cannot negotiate their way out of a noncompete clause because noncompetes are buried in the fine print of employment contracts. A full third of noncompete clauses are presented after a worker has accepted a job."
Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) executive director Mike Pierce pointed out that the FTC on Tuesday "recognized the harmful role debt plays in the workplace, including the growing use of training repayment agreement provisions, or TRAPs, and took action to outlaw TRAPs and all other employer-driven debt that serve the same functions as noncompete agreements."
Sandeep Vaheesan, legal director at Open Markets Institute, highlighted that the addition came after his group, SBPC, and others submitted comments on the "significant gap" in the commission's initial January 2023 proposal, and also welcomed that "the final rule prohibits both conventional noncompete clauses and newfangled versions like TRAPs."
Jonathan Harris, a Loyola Marymount University law professor and SBPC senior fellow, said that "by also banning functional noncompetes, the rule stays one step ahead of employers who use 'stay-or-pay' contracts as workarounds to existing restrictions on traditional noncompetes. The FTC has decided to try to avoid a game of whack-a-mole with employers and their creative attorneys, which worker advocates will applaud."
Among those applauding was Jean Ross, president of National Nurses United, who said that "the new FTC rule will limit the ability of employers to use debt to lock nurses into unsafe jobs and will protect their role as patient advocates."
Angela Huffman, president of Farm Action, also cheered the effort to stop corporations from holding employees "hostage," saying that "this rule is a critical step for protecting our nation's workers and making labor markets fairer and more competitive."
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