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Trump proposes eliminating personal income taxes. How would that work?

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(NEW YORK) — In recent campaign speeches, former President Donald Trump has repeatedly floated an eye-catching idea: the elimination of individual income taxes.

The proposal follows a string of other tax cuts put forward by Trump, including the removal of taxes on car-loan payments, social security benefits and servers’ tips. But a potential elimination of personal income taxes for all Americans goes much further.

When podcast host Joe Rogan asked Trump last week whether he was serious about the new plan, Trump said, “Yeah, sure, why not?”

The U.S. would pay for the lost tax revenue with far-reaching tariffs, Trump said.

“We will not allow the enemy to come in and take our jobs and take our factories and take our workers and take our families, unless they pay a big price — and the big price is tariffs,” Trump added.

The individual income tax currently accounts for roughly half of the $5 trillion in revenue that the federal government brings in each year.

It is unclear whether Trump’s proposal would also include the elimination of payroll taxes and corporate income taxes. Those duties account for another 40% of U.S. tax revenue, according to the Tax Policy Center.

“Even in its smallest form, it would be a pretty substantial change from current policy,” Marc Goldwein, senior vice president and senior policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told ABC News.

But he acknowledged that the details about how that proposal would actually work have been scarce. “We don’t have a full proposal,” Goldwein said.

In response to ABC News’ request for comment, the Trump campaign referenced the tax cuts enacted during his first term. But the campaign did not comment directly on his newer proposal of eliminating the individual income tax.

“President Trump passed the largest tax CUTS for working families in history and will make them permanent when he is back in the White House in addition to ending taxes on tips for service workers and ending taxes on Social Security for our seniors,” Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign, told ABC News.

It would be all but impossible to make up for the lost revenue with increased tariffs, experts told ABC News.

On the campaign trail, Trump has promised a sharp escalation of tariffs during his first term. He has proposed tariffs of between 60% and 100% on Chinese goods.

Envisioning a far-reaching policy, Trump has proposed a tax of between 10% and 20% on all imported products. Earlier this month, he told the audience at the Economic Club of Chicago that such a tariff could reach as high as 50%.

Last year, the U.S. imported about $3.8 trillion worth of goods, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis found. To generate the same amount of revenue currently brought in by the individual income tax, a tariff would have needed to be set at about 70%, Alan Auerbach, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who focuses on tax policy, told ABC News.

However, a tariff of such magnitude would significantly reduce U.S. trade, slashing the total amount of imported goods and, in turn, reducing tax revenue.

“It wouldn’t be feasible,” Auerbach said.

Erica York, a senior economist and research director at the Tax Foundation, echoed that view. “It’s mathematically impossible,” York said.

Replacing the individual income tax with tariffs would also shift a greater share of the tax burden onto low- and middle-income households, experts said.

The top 50% of earners accounted for nearly 98% of all federal income taxes in 2021, according to the Tax Foundation. The bottom 50%, in turn, made up about 2% of income tax payments.

Higher tariffs are widely expected to raise prices of consumer goods, since foreign producers typically pass the cost of higher taxes onto customers. As a result, the costs of higher tariffs would fall evenly across U.S. households, since all Americans purchase consumer goods.

In some cases, low- and middle-income earners would pay a higher proportion of the cost burden, since consumer spending often makes up a higher share of their overall budget than it does for their well-off counterparts, Goldwein said.

“Tariffs are at best a flat tax and more likely a regressive one,” Goldwein added.

Trump would have some latitude in setting and implementing tariffs, experts previously told ABC News.

But his proposal to eliminate the personal income tax would require support from both houses of Congress.

“Trump can’t just eliminate the individual income tax,” York said. But, she added, Trump may seek to negotiate tax cuts in 2025, when many of the provisions associated with his signature tax reform law are set to expire.

“Trump could possibly negotiate further tax cuts to be added to those,” York said. “But I don’t see a situation where Congress would align with this swap between the income tax and tariffs.”

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E. coli cases linked to McDonald’s Quarter Pounders rise to 75 across 13 states: CDC

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The number of cases in a deadly E. coli outbreak linked to McDonald’s Quarter Pounders has risen to 75, according to new federal data released Friday.

Cases have been reported in 13 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Most of the cases have been in Colorado, which has 26 reported cases, and Montana, which has 13 reported cases, according to the CDC.

Cases have also been reported in Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming, according to the CDC, which further notes that illnesses have occurred between Sept. 27 and Oct. 10 of this year.

Of the 61 people about whom the CDC has information, 22 have been hospitalized, and two developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a serious, potentially fatal complication of E. coli infection that can cause kidney failure, according to the CDC.

One death has been reported in Colorado in connection with the outbreak. The person was a resident of Mesa County in the western part of the state, according to the Mesa County department of health.

“The true number of sick people in this outbreak is likely much higher than the number reported, and the outbreak may not be limited to the states with known illnesses,” the CDC said in its update. “This is because many people recover without medical care and are not tested for E. coli. In addition, recent illnesses may not yet be reported as it usually takes 3 to 4 weeks to determine if a sick person is part of an outbreak.”

McDonald’s says either fresh, slivered onions or beef patties used for the Quarter Pounder may be behind the outbreak.

Following the initial announcement of the outbreak on Tuesday, the fast-food company announced it had proactively removed two ingredients from stores across two affected regions. The company’s leadership team said that a majority of other menu items are not impacted, according to the CDC investigation.

McDonald’s confirmed in a statement to ABC News that Taylor Farms is the supplier of the sliced onions the fast-food chain removed, but it is unclear whether Taylor Farms provides its products directly to McDonald’s or through an intermediary.

Taylor Farms issued a voluntary recall on Wednesday for its raw onions.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said that raw slivered onions and the beef patties are the focus of their investigation as potential E. coli sources, but also indicated that preliminary data suggests the onions are “a likely source of contamination.”

ABC News’ Kelly McCarthy and Taylor Dunn contributed to this report.

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