Donald and Melania Trump
President Donald Trump’s tax policies are failing for a number of reasons, an expert argued on Sunday — and this expert, like so many others slamming Trump’s tax policies, is nonpartisan.
“President Trump has spent much of his time in office boasting about new carveouts he's enacted, like new deductions for tips, overtime, auto loans and seniors,” wrote Garrett Watson, director of Policy Analysis at the Tax Foundation, for The Hill on Sunday. Wilson conceded that these benefit some Americans, but argued those benefits are offset by how the same policies “narrow the tax base in arbitrary ways and worsen the deficit.”
Wilson added that these tax cuts cause new administration burdens, as "each new deduction comes with definitions, income limits, phaseouts and reporting rules.” Trump’s tax chaos is further compounded by his tariff policies, which Wilson characterizes as Trump thinking tariffs are “the golden ticket to our revenue problems.” In fact, Wilson pointed out that tariffs do not bring anywhere near the revenue that Trump says they will, but instead hurt ordinary families by causing "higher prices, lower wages and smaller profits" and "threaten[ing] to offset much of the growth and income gains from the 2025 tax cuts."
Wilson ultimately concluded that "a simpler code and an honest accounting of the nation's finances would do more for working families than another round of tariff fights and tax complexity."
Trump has repeatedly come under fire for his handling of taxes and tariffs. Earlier this month, lawyer Ray Brescie wrote for MS Now that the Court of International Trade’s Judge Richard Eaton has become an “unlikely hero” of the Trump era by demanding that the president return billions in illegally collected tariffs from the levies he imposed at the start of his second term.
“While one might think this was a recipe for mischief, an unlikely hero has arisen, Judge Richard Eaton of that court, who appears to be holding the administration’s feet to the fire and does not appear like he is about to tolerate many shenanigans should the administration seek to drag those feet in an effort to evade the law,” Brescia explained, citing when he ordered “Customs and Border Protection to refund the illegal tariffs paid by American companies. At a time when lawyers and judges gravitate toward complex reasoning, obscuring jargon and legal briefs and opinions that seemingly go on forever, Eaton has taught a masterclass in simple, concise and clear language.”
Andrew Egger and William Kristol of the center-right publication The Bulwark also condemned Trump for demanding $10 billion from taxpayers as compensation for being prosecuted for his alleged crimes while president. First they said it was hypocritical for Trump to justify it by saying that “nobody cares how much [I pay myself] if it goes to a good charity,” even though Trump has slashed hundreds of billions in social welfare programs that people voted for. Second, Egger pointed out that “Trump had been using his personal charity, it came to light after a lawsuit from the state of New York, to pay his business debts, make political contributions, and buy things for himself.”
Trump has also given taxpayer money to his friends, such as when the Department of Justice awarded Michael Flynn, a retired three-star Army general who served as Trump's National Security Advisor for less than a month, a $1.25 million settlement.
"I really do not understand how you justify this as anything but theft," said Andrew Weissmann, a former Justice Department prosecutor, earlier in March. "To make this a legitimate settlement, there would have to be a good faith belief that he has a meritorious argument and that there might be some downside in litigating this."