When polls close this week on the longest presidential campaign ever recorded, corporate America could pocket a potential quarter trillion in future untaxed profits should Donald Trump return to the White House.
Trump is bidding to become only the second person in history to win back the Oval Office after Grover Cleveland served nonconsecutive terms from 1885 to 1889 and 1893 to 1897.
By comparison, Vice President Kamala Harris hopes to bury the 78-year-old’s political ambitions once and for all.
Should she win, her corporate tax plans could result in $250 billion less landing in the coffers of big business, according to an estimate by Goldman Sachs.
The investment bank estimates that Trump’s proposal to cut the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15% would boost S&P 500's earnings by 4%. In contrast, Harris’s plan to raise the rate to 28% would cut earnings by 5%, with additional corporate tax measures lowering earnings by another 3%.
What is Donald Trump's tax plan?
In addition to making his signature 2017 tax cuts permanent, Trump has suggested his administration would slash the existing 21% corporate tax rate to 15% for companies that produce goods in the United States.
Who might exactly qualify, though, remains unclear, as many goods require parts and other raw materials that may be imported.
Workers simply putting the final screws into a passenger car whose seats, tires, engine, and other subassemblies come from abroad, for example, likely may not count.
However, a Trump victory is not all good for big business.
The specter of trade wars would return under the controversial ex-president, who has even proposed jacking up tariffs to fund the complete elimination of federal income tax.
At $2.4 trillion, it accounts for half of the overall $4.9 trillion tax take and is nearly five times the $529 billion in revenue the U.S. collects from corporations.
What is Kamala Harris's tax plan?
Under a Harris administration, the corporate tax rate would actually increase to 28%, shaving off as much as 5% from corporate earnings, according to Bank of America.
This is, however, still a far cry from the 35% that existed under Republican President George W. Bush.
The Vice President has also signaled her support for Biden’s controversial proposal to tax unrealized capital gains.
While this is primarily aimed at closing a loophole for the ultrawealthy, including Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen worries it will kill the tech startup scene that powers American innovation.
By comparison, she’s been remarkably quiet about closing the carried interest tax loophole that benefits major Wall Street hedge fund investors.
What does this mean for corporate America?
Initially, very little. Tax cuts and spending pledges are popular in election campaigns, but once a president is in office, political and economic constraints paired with special-interest lobbying invariably dilute such plans before they ever make it far enough to get a floor vote in Congress.
However, there is one focal point that will concentrate minds on Capitol Hill—the very real possibility that a number of elements in Trump’s 2017 tax cut package could sunset entirely by the end of next year.
Whoever is in the White House, Trump or Harris, will have a political fight on their hands.
How will this affect the stock market?
If fully enacted, Goldman Sachs estimates, the two contrasting corporate tax plans could mean as much as a 12% swing in either direction in terms of S&P earnings, with Trump adding 4% to profits while Harris would reduce them by 8%.
“There’s no way to describe this other than that this is a significant fiscal event,” Rohit Kumar, a co-lead of PwC’s national tax practice, told the Financial Times.
Initially, a Trump election could provide a short-term boost to stock prices in the immediate aftermath, as a corporate tax cut could once again light a fire under corporate share buybacks.
What does this mean for the fiscal deficit?
Equity markets are not the only force acting on government. The federal deficit of $1.8 trillion, the third-largest on record unadjusted for inflation, could never be funded were it not for foreigners undersigning America’s ever-growing spending habits.
Right now, Uncle Sam spends $3 billion every single day just to service its $35 trillion mountain of debt, and interest payments are expected to become the fastest-growing component of the federal budget over the next 30 years.
Neither candidate has any costed plan that would guarantee a drop in the fiscal deficit.
Recent analysis from the Penn Wharton Budget Model shows Trump could add $5.8 trillion in new debt over 10 years, while Harris would only increase it by a paltry $1.2 trillion.
What does this mean for inflation?
Oddly enough, neither candidate’s plans address the core issue in many voters’ minds: high consumer prices.
In fact, Wall Street fears Trump may even ignite the next bout of inflation due to his profligate fiscal proposals.
Trump has sought to counteract these claims by arguing his donor and ally Musk will be handed control over government resources in order to slash $2 trillion in costs by eliminating entire federal agencies and gutting the government workforce.
If he succeeds—a big if—Musk has admitted, this would result in considerable short-term hardship for Americans.
However, the fiscal contraction resulting from his actions could help dampen the inflationary effects of the rest of Trump’s budget plans.
