Donald Trump today pledged a tax credit for the full cost of generators purchased since September 1 in states hit by natural disasters:
Newsweek quoting Truth Social:
Is there any emergency provision, in current law, making this arguably within presidential powers?
An important nitpick: He said “fully deduct the TOTAL cost”. A deduction is not a tax credit. If you’re in a 20% tax bracket, a full deduction is worth 20% the cost of a generator. A tax credit would be worth 100% of the cost.
But I suspect that the answer to “can the President do this?” is the same in both cases, and I suspect that, like most things Presidential candidates promise, he can’t on his own, but Congress can.
He proposes it as a specific tax deduction so it would have to be legislated.
Mind you, there already exists a structure of Disaster Tax Relief in the tax codes and regulations, which depending on the disaster and the damages could render this new deduction trivial or moot.
And even then some refundable tax credits are not automatically paid at 100% but are capped relative to the expense or to your tax liability. So that itself would have to be explicit in the legislation.
But sure you can put the full price in the line for deduction of the cost – yes that in turn means reducing your tax bill only by X% of that cost once everything else is computed, and only if it’s worth it to you to itemize deductions (under the latest tax laws including those passed under Trump himself, most of the population doesn’t have to) but the intended audience is not paying attention to that. What I suspect the people who proposed this to him meant was that the deduction would be unlimited, no matter the cost of the generator.
He has some very powerful new friends in the Generac lobby.
I don’t think so, but I’m sure he won’t even try if he’s elected. Kind of like replace the ACA with something more beautiful. Once in office, he lost interest.
He hasn’t lost interest. He has the concept of a plan, ready to be announced … soon.
[Moderating]
A reminder, all, that this thread is in FQ. It isn’t about what any given President would like to do, or what they’re likely to do, or their reasons for doing anything, all of which are political questions. It’s for the factual question of what the President can do.
I think it is pretty obvious that the president cannot, but congress can. That is true of nearly everything both candidates are promising.
I wouldn’t say it’s obvious. The executive branch has considerable discretion over regulation until the tax code. This law review article (pdf download) provides considerable detail: https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4722&context=clr. It’s more likely than not that the Treasury Secretary (and hence the POTUS) had existing statutory authority which would allow this sort of thing, particularly under the POTUS’ disaster relief powers which are especially broad.