Thune on millionaire tax: 'I don’t want to see taxes go up on anybody'

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is making it clear that he’s not a fan of President Trump’s proposal earlier this week to raise taxes on wealthy income earners, but he’s willing to listen to what the president has in mind.

“I don’t want to see taxes go up on anybody,” Thune said in an interview Friday with CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

“We’re all about lowering taxes, not raising taxes,” Thune told host Joe Kernen, but he acknowledged that Trump is not a “conventional” Republican.  

“The president, he’s not a conventional president. People didn’t vote for a conventional president and I think his policies reflect that,” Thune said.

He said Trump has put “particular emphasis on working Americans” by unveiling proposals to shield tipped income, overtime pay and Social Security benefits from taxation.

Thune said Trump wants to target tax relief to “the people who are out there trying to make a living in this country.”

Trump earlier this week had asked Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to create a new income bracket taxed for people earning more than $2.5 million a year that would be taxed at 39.6 percent.

On Friday, he appeared to pivot, writing on Truth Social that "Republicans should probably not do it, but I’m OK if they do!!!"

Thune noted that Johnson will take the first crack at finding out whether that controversial proposal could pass the House, where many GOP lawmakers oppose raising taxes on the wealthy, arguing that it would disincentivize entrepreneurship.

“Of course this is going to originate, this all starts in the House of Representatives. They’re going to have to figure out how to dial this and to make it fit within the parameters that are out there,” he said.

Thune emphasized that the House needs to make several key business tax provisions permanent, such as bonus depreciation, interest deductibility, research and development expensing, and expensing for factories.

“I think it’s important that those provisions at least be made permanent so that businesses can plan around it,” he said.

When Kernen asked about exempting small businesses which file their taxes under the individual tax code from a new higher tax bracket, Thune said it’s an option.

“They’re talking about, if this were to happen, carving out pass-through businesses,” he said, noting that pass-through businesses make up 96 percent of businesses in the country.

“On the business side, what you want is growth,” he said. “On the individual side, I think what the president is trying to achieve, again, is to help working Americans who are out there every day just trying to take care of their families.”