Donald Trump visited Capitol Hill today, meeting with several top executives at a Business Roundtable event in Washington, D.C., as the expiration of the tax cuts implemented during his administration is on the horizon.

As the tax cuts near their expiration date, President Joe Biden is tasked with addressing their future, a decision with implications for the economy and individual and corporate finances.

Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman breaks down the details,

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Market Domination Overtime.

This post was written by Angel Smith

Video Transcript

Former president Donald Trump just wrapping up a meeting with dozens of CEO S in Washington.

And it comes as the Biden administration starts rolling out some details of how it's going to address the expiration of the Trump tax cuts.

Your finance senior columnist Rick Newman is here.

Rick.

Hey, guys.

Uh, well, let's remember, uh, some of the tax cuts from 2017 are permanent and some are temporary.

So the business tax cuts, uh, that lowered the, uh, corporate tax rate to 21%.

That's permanent.

That is not gonna change unless somebody changes it.

What expires in, uh, at the end of 2025 are all the individual tax cuts.

Um, and what Biden wants to do is let them go back to their prior levels for everybody except people who earn under $400,000 households with under 400 $100,000 that is, that's Biden's threshold.

You hear that a lot under $400,000.

I think they picked that because it includes almost everybody in the United States, falls under that threshold.

So Biden can go around saying, I don't wanna raise anybody's taxes except for the wealthy.

And that's people who make over $400,000.

This battle is already underway.

I mean, lobbying groups are saying it would be a disaster if they expire.

It would be a disaster if if they stayed in effect.

What are the budgetary implications?

It's gonna, you know, it's gonna add $4 trillion to the national debt if we leave the tax cuts in place and so so on.

So we're gonna be talking about this a lot for the next next year and a half.

Um, so CEO S were meeting with Trump today, and, you know, it's interesting when you talk about that the corporate tax rate is not gonna change unless legislation comes to change.

It doesn't expire.

But, you know, you had a lot of mainstream CEO S who were in that room with Donald Trump today.

So talk to me about what they want or what they Maybe as you said in your story that came out today What?

What they have to fear from him.

Uh, well, uh, so this was this was not Donald Trump calling up CEO S and saying, Hey, do you wanna get together?

This was sponsored by the business round table, a huge, uh, business lobbyist in him.

They invited him and they invited President Biden.

So they're not playing favourites here?

Biden's in Italy, so he can't go.

But he, uh, Jeff Zients, his adviser, went and addressed the group.

Um what, uh, what CEO S of big businesses want is they want that corporate tax rate to stay where it is.

Um, there are some other tax breaks they would like to get.

There were one that regards the expensing of R and D. Uh, costs, Uh, that is in a bill that's in that is on the hill right now.

It looks like it's not gonna pass.

They would like to get that.

I think, uh, the the Cor Corporate America is pretty happy with the tax situation in the United States right now.

I mean, they got a big ask when Trump lowered that rate from 35% to 21%.

There really have been no corporate headquarters shifting overseas.

The way we saw the so called inversions that happened, um, just to avoid the US tax system.

So that's pretty good.

I think mainly they just don't want the tax rate to go up or to lose some of those tax benefits.

And Biden?

For his part, uh, he would raise it, uh, to 28%.

That's That's, uh, that's what he's been.

I mean, he campaigned on that in 2020 raised the corporate tax rate from 21 to 28%.

Um, he'd probably settle for 25%.

But just as a reminder on that, uh, he couldn't get that done even when Democrats controlled Congress.

Um, so he couldn't even get the votes for that when Democrats had the ability to do it.

So I think there's a good chance 21 is gonna be where it stays.

But there there are gonna be some other changes for sure, based on those that are gonna expire.

And then there's the other stuff that Trump also is making the other things that he is pitching to the business community.

And we've talked about before that he says he's gonna roll back rules on EVs, which is sort of fascinating, especially considering his his budding friendship with Elon Musk.

Yeah, So this is what CEO S don't like about Donald Trump or that some of the things that they really worry about.

Um, so Trump is saying, Look, if I get another term, it's gonna be low taxes and light regulation and everybody's like, Yes, that's, uh We love that we love that.

Great.

Um, but here's what else you want to do.

He wants to add even more tariffs than he than he put on When he was president the first time around, he floated the idea that I mean, this is not going to happen, but just to give you a sense of his thinking, he floated the idea recently of getting rid of the income tax completely.

The income tax brought in $2.2 trillion in federal revenue in the last year.

So he would say, Get rid of that.

And let's just make it all make up the difference through tariffs.

So I just did the back of the envelope math.

You'd have to add a 58% tariff on every one of $3.8 trillion worth of imports to the United States, and then you'd have massive distortions and price hikes and trade wars and stuff and con.

You know, Trump can't repeal the tax code.

I mean, he can't repeal the individual income tax.

So that's what CEO S don't like.

And when you talk about electric vehicles, uh, it it's it's not just EVs.

It's the whole green energy infrastructure.

I mean, businesses are mobilising billions and billions of dollar of dollars in capital because of the tax breaks they're getting from the, uh, from the IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed in 2022.

And, uh, electric vehicles are here to stay.

I mean, his his buddy Elon Musk, who runs Tesla, should tell Trump.

Um, this is not These are not government vehicles were no.

Where the government is not forcing anybody to buy a Tesla.

Let's just get passed today, Rick.

All right.

We can have a bigger guy we know he can do.

He can do more than one thing at a time.

Lots of plates.

Yeah, that's right.

That's right.

He's spinning it all, Uh, so, um and you know, Ford and GM and Chrysler and all the other automakers have invested many billions of dollars in electric vehicle transforming factories.

Um, they don't want Trump to come in and kill electric vehicles.

They would lose a lot of money.

Yeah, drama continues.

It will.

Thank you, Rick.

Appreciate it.