WASHINGTON, Aug. 20-- U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday he is considering multiple tax cuts to bolster the economy that experts fear will enter into recession, a view the president denied. Talking to reporters at the White House, Trump said he is thinking about reducing capital-gains taxes by indexing them into inflation, as well as enacting payroll tax cuts. "We've been talking about indexing for a long time, and many people like indexing," Trump said. "It can be done directly by me." Under the current tax policy, households owe taxes on the full nominal value of certain capital gains, and the potential change would index the asset basis to inflation, thus exempting those gains that are a result of inflation from being taxed and leaving only real value of any capital gain as taxable income. The Penn-Wharton Budget Model's analysis suggests that the proposal would cost 102 billion U.S. dollars over the next decade. The research team said in a study published on March 23, 2018 that "high-income households would benefit most" from the policy change. Trump said he "would love to do something on capital gains... That's a big deal; it goes through Congress." On payroll taxes, the president said it is "something that we think about and a lot of people would like to see that, and that very much affects the workers of our country." Payroll taxes are usually used to fund social safety net programs such as Social Security and Medicare. |