If White House chief strategist Steve Bannon gets his way, President Trump’s tax reform proposal will call for a significant tax hike on the wealthiest Americans.
According to The Intercept, Bannon, the former chairman of Breitbart News, is pushing for a 44 percent top tax rate on those earning more than $5 million. Currently, the top tax bracket is 39.6 percent.
As The Intercept notes, though Bannon is conservative, a push for a tax hike would not be out of whack with his populist ideology.
Bannon’s preference would face significant hurdles, both from within the Trump administration as well as from congressional Republicans who generally want a lower top tax bracket.
Trump himself has sent mixed messages on the issue.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal this week, Trump left open the possibility of increasing the top rate.
“If there’s upward revision it’s going to be on high-income people,” he told the newspaper.
He has talked in the past about raising marginal tax rates on the wealthy.
But in April, the White House released an outline for a tax plan that lowered the top rate to 35 percent. That plan also called for only two other tax brackets — 10 percent and 25 percent.
Earlier this month, Axios reported that Bannon was pushing for a tax rate hike.
He reportedly told colleagues that the highest tax bracket would “have a 4 in front of it.”