Trump campaign vs. Trump administration: on Tax Reform

Donald Trump: Comparison of Warren wealth tax to Trump wealth tax

1. He wanted the tax to be a one-time levy that would reduce the national debt and therefore reduce interest service payments. Warren's plan would simply levy a smaller tax each year.
2. He wanted a fairly hefty rate--14.5%--that would have required a lot of rapid-fire liquidation of business assets. Warren's rate structure is much lower than that.
3. He set the threshold for his tax lower. While Warren wants to tax fortunes worth more than $50 million, Trump proposed taxing wealth starting at $10 million. This was in 1999; in inflation-adjusted dollars, that's $15 million.

Mike Quigley: Fully fund the IRS for staffing and cybersecurity

Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) expressed doubts that a continuously shrinking IRS could effectively do its job, especially now that it's received new responsibilities under the tax reform law. "It is hard to imagine why this administration would want to weaken the IRS and give taxpayers less resources right after passing a complex tax bill," Quigley said. He also questioned why the Trump administration would cut cybersecurity enhancement funding nearly in half--down from $47.7 million in 2017 to $25.2 million in 2019 --especially at a time when the IRS stops nearly a million attempted cyber intrusions each day. "The Treasury budget before us would slash various programs that will make us less effective, less efficient and more vulnerable to outside risk," he said.

Steve Mnuchin: No net tax cut for the highest earners

Steve Mnuchin: Extra $400M for IRS budget, IT, services, & staff

Testifying before a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, Mnuchin stressed the importance of giving the IRS nearly $400 million annually for fiscal years 2018 and 2019 to help implement the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Since 2010, Congress has cut the IRS budget by nearly $1 billion, and more than 17,000 employees have left the agency. In President Donald Trump's fiscal 2019 budget request, the IRS would see another $100 million decrease in its overall funding.

About $291 million would be spent updating the IRS' IT systems. Another $75 million would go to taxpayer services, a department the Trump administration seeks to shrink by 8.7% and 4,000 employees in FY 2019.