![Americans for Tax Fairness](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012609/origin.jpg)
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
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.
(202) 506-3264Report Shows How US Drug War and Deportation Machine Are Destroying Lives
"It's imperative that the U.S. government revises federal law to match current state-based drug policy reforms to end and prevent the immense human suffering being inflicted in the name of the drug war."
Thousands of people are deported from the United States each year for past drug offenses that often aren't even crimes anymore under evolving state narcotics laws, a report published Monday revealed.
The 91-page Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) report—titled Disrupt and Vilify: The War on Immigrants Inside the U.S. War on Drugs—highlights the experiences of people deported years or even decades after they committed drug offenses.
One of those immigrants, Natalie Burke of Jamaica, was convicted in 2003 of cannabis-related offenses but pardoned last August by Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, who acted on the unanimous recommendation of a state clemency board, which found that Burke was a victim of domestic violence who was "lured" into trafficking marijuana.
However, according to the report:
She cannot move on with her life because U.S. immigration authorities are trying to deport her, even though marijuana is now legal in Arizona and she has a pardon...
Natalie explained that one day in 2009, her probation officer asked her to come into the Tucson office to fill out some paperwork. Her son, who was in fifth grade at the time, waited for her outside in the parking lot. Natalie never came back to him that day. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers took her directly to an immigration detention center because her conviction made her deportable from the United States.
"Even with a hard-won gubernatorial pardon, and even in a state where marijuana is now legal, ICE is still trying to deport Natalie," the report adds. "She continues to fight back and is currently pursuing new legal arguments based on the pardon."
Burke is far from alone. Analyzing data from 2002-20, the report's authors found approximately 500,000 deportations of people whose most serious offense was drug-related. More than 150,000 of those deportations were the result of convictions for drug use or possession, including 47,000 for marijuana—which is now legal for recreational or medicinal use in a majority of U.S. states.
"The uniquely American combination of the drug war and deportation machine work hand in hand to target, exclude, and punish noncitizens for minor offenses—or in some states legal activity—such as marijuana possession," DPA federal affairs director Maritza Perez Medina said in a statement.
"This report underscores that punitive federal drug laws separate families, destabilize communities, and terrorize noncitizens, all while overdose deaths have risen and drugs have become more potent and available," she added. "It's imperative that the U.S. government revises federal law to match current state-based drug policy reforms to end and prevent the immense human suffering being inflicted in the name of the drug war."
The publication notes that "of all immigrants deported with criminal offenses, people with drug-related offenses had lived in the U.S. for the longest periods of time."
This has resulted in the deportation of immigrants who have lived in the United States since childhood and U.S. military veterans being separated from their families.
The report's authors interviewed some people living under the threat of deportation who have become parents or even grandparents of U.S. citizens during their time in the country.
"I'm not able to live and operate without fear because I'm not a citizen," one California resident convicted for marijuana and paraphernalia possession said in the report. "I've lived here for more than 20 years now. This is my home. I have children here. I want to be a citizen, and I'm making every effort to do that. But it seems like that's not going to be possible."
"Congress should reform immigration law to ensure immigrants with criminal convictions, including for drug offenses, are not subject to 'one-size-fits-all' deportations."
HRW immigration and border policy director Vicki Gaubeca said: "Why should parents or grandparents be deported away from children in their care for decades-old drug offenses, including offenses that would be legal today? If drug conduct is not a crime under state law, it should not make someone deportable."
The report also highlights cases of legal permanent residents lawfully employed in states' marijuana industries who cannot become citizens because, due to enduring federal criminalization of cannabis, they are considered to lack "good moral character," and immigrant women who have been sexually abused by corrections officers who know their victims would soon be deported.
HRW and DPA asserted that "Congress should reform immigration law to ensure immigrants with criminal convictions, including for drug offenses, are not subject to 'one-size-fits-all' deportations."
"Instead," the authors argue, "immigration judges should be given the discretion to make individualized decisions. As an important first step, Congress should impose a statute of limitations on deportations, so people can move beyond old offenses and get on with their lives."
'Shocking': UNRWA Chief Decries Israel's Destruction of Agency Headquarters
"Another episode in the blatant disregard of international humanitarian law," said the commissioner-general of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees expressed horror Monday over Israeli forces' destruction of the key aid organization's headquarters in Gaza City, which Israel's military recently attacked and left in ruins.
"Shocking," Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), wrote in a social media post, which included photos of the bombed-out headquarters complex.
"UNRWA headquarters in Gaza, turned into a battlefield and now flattened," Lazzarini continued. "Another episode in the blatant disregard of international humanitarian law. United Nations facilities must be protected at all times. They must never be used for military or fighting purposes. Every war has rules. Gaza is no exception."
Shocking. @UNRWA headquarters in #Gaza, turned into a battlefield & now flattened 👇
Another episode in the blatant disregard of international humanitarian law.
United Nations facilities must be protected at all times. They must never be used for military or fighting… pic.twitter.com/XVOm5UjJeM
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) July 15, 2024
Photos of UNRWA's destroyed headquarters emerged following a deadly weekend of Israeli bombings across the Gaza Strip that were overshadowed in the media by the attempted assassination of former U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday.
More than 140 people were killed and hundreds more were wounded on Saturday and Sunday, including in Israeli airstrikes on a so-called "safe zone" in southern Gaza.
Tamara Alrifai, UNRWA's head of external relations, told Al Jazeera on Monday that "the last week has been one of the deadliest weeks in Gaza since the war started."
"The images coming out of the UNRWA headquarters are really shocking," said Alrifai. "What I saw today in the footage is unrecognizable."
While U.S. media blacked out coverage for Palestine: "The headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has been destroyed."
"The last week has been the worst violence since the war started," said Tamara al-Rafai, Head of External Relations. https://t.co/Jh228UYexc pic.twitter.com/jVHcqIpd2e
— HalalFlow (@halalflow) July 15, 2024
UNRWA and its infrastructure in Gaza, including schools, have been major targets of Israel's far-right government since its latest assault on the Palestinian enclave began in October following a deadly Hamas-led attack. Israeli officials have repeatedly claimed—without providing evidence—that a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations.
Nearly 200 UNRWA facilities in Gaza, most of which have been serving as shelters for displaced people, have been damaged during Israel's war on the besieged territory, Alrifai noted Monday. Around 500 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on UNRWA facilities, according to Alrifai.
"It speaks volumes to the blatant disregard for international humanitarian law," she said.
Israel's aerial and ground attacks on Gaza continued Monday as much of the territory's population is facing catastrophic levels of hunger. Since the start of the assault, Israel has dramatically restricted the flow of humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip, depriving Palestinians of food, medicine, clean water, and other basic necessities.
Reutersreported that Israel "struck the southern and central Gaza Strip" on Monday and "blew up several homes."
"Medical officials said they recovered 10 bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in eastern areas of the city, some of which had already begun to decompose," the news agency added. "The military also stepped up aerial and tank shelling in central Gaza in the al-Bureij and al-Maghazi historic refugee camps. Health officials said five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in Maghazi camp."
'Utterly Unhinged': Trump-Appointed Judge Dismisses Classified Docs Case
"This is how republics collapse," one lawyer said, noting that even if the decision is reversed, it will likely delay "Trump's trial long enough to prevent any form of accountability before the November election."
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, dismissed the criminal classified documents case against the presumptive Republican presidential nominee in a Monday decision denounced as politically motivated and "a punch in the mouth to the rule of law."
The Florida-based judge's dismissal came as the Republican National Convention kicked off in Milwaukee, Wisconsin after Trump survived an assassination attempt at a Saturday campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump is expected to formally become the GOP presidential nominee on Thursday.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith as special counsel for a pair of federal probes after Trump announced the current presidential campaign in November 2022. Trump was finally indicted for his handling of classified documents the following June. He faces 40 charges in this case alone.
"Unless the 11th Circuit and ultimately SCOTUS disagree, Trump goes free for walking out of the White House with top secret documents."
In response to Trump's motion to dismiss, Cannon on Monday agreed with his defense team that "Smith's appointment violates the appointments clause of the United States Constitution" and dismissed the superseding indictment.
Cannon wrote that "both the appointments and appropriations challenges as framed in the motion raise the following threshold question: Is there a statute in the United States Code that authorizes the appointment of Special Counsel Smith to conduct this prosecution? After careful study of this seminal issue, the answer is no."
"None of the statutes cited as legal authority for the appointment... gives the attorney general broad inferior-officer appointing power or bestows upon him the right to appoint a federal officer with the kind of prosecutorial power wielded by Special Counsel Smith," she continued. "Nor do the special counsel's strained statutory arguments, appeals to inconsistent history, or reliance on out-of-circuit authority persuade otherwise."
With an appeal all but certain, Cannon's decision could be reconsidered by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta or the U.S. Supreme Court, which has a conservative supermajority that includes three Trump appointees. Journalists and legal experts on Monday framed the dismissal as just the latest move the judge has made to benefit the man who appointed her.
The Associated Presspointed out that Cannon previously "appointed an independent arbiter to inspect the classified documents recovered during the August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago, a decision that was overturned months later by a unanimous federal appeals panel," and "since then, she has been slow to issue rulings—favoring Trump's strategy of securing delays—and has entertained defense arguments that experts said other judges would have dismissed without hearings."
The New York Timesnoted that "Judge Cannon's ruling came exactly two weeks after Justice Clarence Thomas deeply questioned the constitutionality of Smith's appointment in an odd concurrence in the Supreme Court's landmark ruling granting Trump broad immunity against criminal prosecution," which stemmed from Smith's other case against Trump.
University of Alabama law professor and MSNBC legal commentator Joyce White Vance also highlighted how Cannon's decision—which she roundly criticized and called "absolutely incredible"—came after Thomas' concurrence.
"Unless the 11th Circuit and ultimately SCOTUS disagree, Trump goes free for walking out of the White House with top secret documents. At best, this is seriously delayed," said Vance, adding that she was "disgusted."
Congressman Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said that "the dismissal of this case reflects a clear bias for the former president and the outlying opinion of the far-right wing Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas."
"To dismiss this case would be a miscarriage of justice," he added. "I urge Attorney General Garland and Special Counsel Smith to appeal this egregious decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals."
As the Times reported: "The ruling rolls back nearly 30 years of how special counsels have gotten their jobs. Special counsels are governed by Justice Department regulations set through the statutory authority of the attorney general."
MSNBC host Chris Hayes accused Cannon of failing to do her job correctly by defying precedent and potentially hoping that the nation's highest court will uphold her decision.
"Just to be crystal clear: SCOTUS has upheld special counsels repeatedly. Cannon is a district court judge, her job is to apply controlling precedent," he explained. "She's doing this because she thinks the MAGA court is on the same page as her and Trump's lawyers and will go along."
Human rights lawyer Qasim Rashid suggested that Cannon's timing was intentional, saying: "She saw the nonstop media coverage of the shooting, used that distraction to overturn decades of legal precedent without citing a single case in her ruling's favor, and dismissed Trump's classified documents case. This is how republics collapse."
"To be sure, Cannon's absurd ruling is so extreme that only one of the MAGA justices supported it in his immunity decision (Thomas). Her decision will likely be reversed because it has absolutely zero basis in precedent whatsoever. It is utterly unhinged," he added. "But Cannon's indefensible opinion still serves its purpose of delaying Trump's trial long enough to prevent any form of accountability before the November election. That was the move all along."
Damon Silvers, a visiting professor at University College London, said that "it's important to understand Judge Cannon's dismissal of the criminal case against Trump as both an attempt to grant him legal immunity AND an effort to escalate tensions in our country for political purposes. The right response is an appeal."
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington president Noah Bookbinder also called for an appeal, saying in a statement that "this is a lawless, outlier decision with no basis in statute or case law. It is deeply dangerous for accountability and checks and balances going forward."
"This decision should and assuredly will be appealed immediately," he added. "It endangers the very concept of ensuring the most powerful people in government have to follow the law."
While fighting this case, Trump in May was convicted of 34 felonies in New York for the falsification of business records regarding hush money payments to cover up sex scandals during the 2016 presidential election. He faces two other cases—one overseen by Smith and another in Georgia—related to his attempt to overturn his 2020 loss to Democratic President Joe Biden, who is seeking reelection.