President spending Christmas at exclusive Florida resort

President Donald Trump told members of his exclusive Florida resort “You all just got a lot richer,” just hours after signing a sweeping $1.5 trillion tax reform bill that critics said would disproportionately help the wealthiest Americans, a report on Sunday said.

Trump made the announcement during a dinner at Mar-a-Lago on Friday evening, boasting to his fellow one-percenters that the “biggest in history” tax cut he signed earlier in the day would make them even wealthier, CBS News reported, citing people sitting near the president’s table who heard the remarks.

The president is spending the Christmas holiday at his ritzy resort in Palm Beach, where members pay initiation fees of $200,000 and annual dues of $14,000, the network reported.

The commander-in-chief touted the benefits of the tax cuts – his first major legislative accomplishment since winning the White House last year – as a jobs generator and a Christmas gift for the middle-class.

“They’re going to start seeing the results in February. This bill means more take-home pay. It will be an incredible Christmas gift for hard-working Americans. I said I wanted to have it done before Christmas. We got it done,” Trump told a meeting of his Cabinet members last week.

Democrats have criticized the tax overhaul, passed by the GOP-majority Congress without their support, as a giveaway to corporations and the country’s richest, while hurting middle-class and low-income Americans, noting that while the corporate tax cuts are permanent those for individuals expire in 10 years.

Sen. Bernie Sanders took to Twitter to say the president is finally coming clean on who wins in the GOP tax plan.

“At least Trump is finally telling the truth about his tax bill,” the independent from Vermont posted.

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center said 80 percent of Americans will pay less taxes in 2018 and fewer than 5 percent will see their taxes rise by less than $10.

By 2027, 53 percent of Americans will see their taxes increase, it said.

But according to a report in the New York Times, Trump stands to reap an $11 million windfall because of the tax overhaul.

Basing their calculations on Trump’s 2005 tax return – the most recent available because the president has dismissed calls to make them available – he will qualify for a significantly reduced tax rate that benefit “pass-through” businesses, including real estate companies, that pass income to their owners.

The White House reiterated its message to CBS that Trump will not personally profit from the tax plan.

“In some ways, particularly on the personal side, the president will likely take a big hit,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said last week.

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