What’s on the table when it comes to the GOP tax overhaul plan

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The following is a transcript of a segment of NPR’s “Morning Edition” from April 10, 2017. David Wessel joined to discuss the GOP’s tax plan and what we know so far. Listen to the interview here.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: It has been coming any day now. For weeks, the Trump administration’s been promising a major overhaul of the federal tax code – the taxes you and I and businesses and maybe even foreign manufacturers pay. And a small detail, the package is supposed to ease the budget deficit, too. But as that list of players and concerns might tell you, a lot of folks want a say in this. So when we want to talk about tax reform, we call one guy. His name is David Wessel, and he’s our regular economics commentator. Hi, David. DAVID WESSEL, BYLINE: Good morning. MARTIN: The tax code is big. It is crazy complicated. So when you say reform the tax code, what does that mean? What are they going to prioritize? WESSEL: Well, right now almost all the focus is on the business side of the tax code – bringing down the corporate tax rate, which is one of the highest in the world, maybe allowing businesses to write off any investments they make immediately instead of depreciating them over time, maybe cutting taxes for partnerships and other businesses that pay at the personal tax rate. As you know, the House has a far-reaching plan that would tax things consumed in the U.S. – whether they were imported or domestically produced – but it would exempt exports. Right now, that seems so politically divisive that the odds of surviving that are low. And you may have noticed, I haven’t said anything about the taxes that ordinary people pay. There’s been very little attention to that lately, even though Donald Trump promised to ...

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