As the 100-day mark approaches, President Donald Trump's administration hurried to unveil what White House chief economic adviser Gary Cohn described as the "biggest tax cut" in USA history.
By contrast, the top USA corporate rate has stayed the same at 35% since 1993 - the highest among the world's 20 largest economies.
The plan is not expected by analysts to include any proposals for raising new revenue, potentially adding billions of dollars to the federal deficit.
While the plan contains broad outlines rather than firm legislative text, Mnuchin and Cohn said the plan would include "the biggest tax cut" in United States history, echoing statements made by Trump.
Whether Trump will include provisions that could attract Democratic votes, such as a proposal to fund infrastructure spending or a child-care tax credit as proposed by his daughter Ivanka, is still the subject of speculation.
Overall, it's a huge cut to corporate taxes and individual rates for high earners, with some significant cuts to deductions that are nowhere near enough to pay for it all. That's well below today's top rates of of 28%, 33% and 39.6%.
The administration has emphasized that the plan was focused on simplifying the tax code and helping middle class Americans. This means lower tax on profits earned outsider the US.
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The contributions would be tax deductible, then grow tax free. The effective US corporate rate is the fourth highest among the world's 20 largest economies, the CBO calculates. Determining the effective rate is not easy given big differences in tax codes and tax breaks in every country. That could result in broad benefits.
"The rest of the world is showing, by their decisions to reduce top corporate tax rates, that they perceive some of those tradeoffs", wrote Timothy Taylor, author of the Conversable Economist blog and managing editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives. By contrast, the CBO found a big increase in the number of USA companies since the early 2000s operating in the U.K., Canada, China, Mexico and India. This would have imposed a tax on goods coming into the U.S. and given a tax incentive for exporters.
Trump will also propose a repatriation tax on offshore earnings along the lines of his campaign proposal for a 10 percent levy, versus the 35 percent due on repatriated foreign profits under present law, the official said. Small businesses that account for their owners' personal incomes would see their top tax rate go from 39.6 percent to the proposed corporate tax rate of 15 percent.
These shifts in where businesses set up or how they organize themselves are costly to the U.S. Treasury.
"I'm not convinced that cutting taxes is necessarily going to blow a hole in the deficit", Hatch said. But his ambitious plan alarmed lawmakers who worry about ballooning federal deficits. Both approaches could harm growth.
The measure introduced Wednesday doesn't mention Trump by name, but it comes after the New York City Republican refused to release his tax returns during his successful run for the presidency previous year.
"If implemented, the plan would be a boom to the economy", said Pam Villareal, senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, "but spending cuts would need to accompany projected revenue shortfalls".
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