Businessman Donald Trump says he’s going to come out with a tax plan in the coming weeks that people at hedge funds will not like but that “pretty much everybody else” will love, declaring Friday that he’s “the king of the tax code.”
“The concept of hedge funds — now these are guys, they don’t really build anything, they shuffle paper, they go back and forth, they live beautifully and so do I and so do you and so do all of us, OK?” Mr. Trump said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “When you pay 14 percent, Joe, I don’t know who you’re talking about — I don’t know any of them that pay 14 percent.”
“There are things that hedge funds do, hedge fund guys do. They make a tremendous amount of money and they don’t pay, and what I want to do is I want to simplify the tax code, and I’m going to be coming out over the next month with I think a really — look, nobody knows the tax code better than I do, OK?” said Mr. Trump, who had risen to the top of recent polling on the 2016 GOP presidential nominating contest.
“I know it better. I’m the king of the tax code,” he said. “And I’m going to come out with a plan, a simplification, a plan getting rid of some of the deductions, which are ridiculous and complicated.”
Mr. Trump reiterated his goal of putting H&R Block “out of business.”
“So we are going to simply the tax code, take away some of the deductions, and hedge fund guys have to pay up,” he said. “Now, I’m going to lower taxes, but these hedge fund guys are making a lot of money. I mean, I [can] tell you I have friends that laugh about how little they pay, and it’s not fair to the middle class, and the middle income people and the middle class. We’re destroying that and, you know, that’s what built this country, and we are destroying the middle class in this country.”
“So I will have a plan. The hedge fund guys won’t be happy, but pretty much everybody else is [going to] love it,” said Mr. Trump, adding that he would be coming out with the plan “over the next four weeks.”
“I know the hedge fund guys, as you know, very well — I probably know all of ’em one way or the other, and big supporters of Hillary Clinton, big supporters of Jeb Bush,” he said. “They’ve given Jeb Bush millions because they’re going to keep it going the same way, and they’ve given [to] Hillary Clinton.”
“You know, with all the talk with Hillary about Wall Street — I mean, they’re all supporting her. It’s a joke, and it’s a joke that she can get away with it,” Mr. Trump said.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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