r/Economics

Trump said tariffs could someday 'substantially replace' income taxes. What policy experts say

2026-02-27 · 18:11 UTC ·u/thejoshwhite ·2 min read

title: Trump said tariffs could someday 'substantially replace' income taxes. What policy experts say
author: u/thejoshwhite
contenttype: redditpost
publication: r/Economics
published: 2026-02-27T18:11:51+00:00
sourceurl: https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/1rge9fy/trumpsaidtariffscouldsomedaysubstantially/

word_count: 377

Link: https://www-cnbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/02/27/trump-tariffs-income-taxes.html?ampgsa=1&ampjsv=a9&usqp=mq331AQGsAEggAID#amptf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17722158137430&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnbc.com%2F2026%2F02%2F27%2Ftrump-tariffs-income-taxes.html

Score: 267 | Comments: 91 | Subreddit: r/Economics

Top Comments

u/EconomistWithaD (292 pts):
You don’t even need policy experts to figure this out. Just basic facts.

  1. Annually, the individual income tax collects $2.5 trillion dollars.

  2. Bessent (taking his inflated figures at face value) estimated that we could bring in $450 billion in tariffs (his estimates for 2026).

  3. This is less than a fifth of income taxes.

QED.

u/okaygecko (30 pts):
It's just another obvious lie for the MAGA base, and he knows they hate income taxes orders of magnitude more than literal fascism (this is an actual, demonstrable fact), and so they eat it up and ask for seconds even though it will never happen in a million years.

u/128-NotePolyVA (22 pts):
This is a consumption tax and Trump loves it because it isn’t progressive like income tax (where the poor pay nothing, the middle class pays something and the upper class pays more). In this scenario, everyone pays more for everything. And that is very hard on the poor. Much much harder than on the rich who easily have more than they could ever need for food, clothing and shelter.

u/mrvernon_notmrvernon (16 pts):
Even if the math worked, which of course it doesn’t, if the tariffs do what they’re designed to do, bring manufacturing back to the US, then their revenue reduces even more.

u/OkPainting180 (8 pts):
Trump says moon cheese could someday substantially replace income taxes. What policy experts say

I love how Trump can say the most deranged, transparently false thing and the media will ALWAYS normalize it and platform it as if it's debatable.

u/ArrowheadDZ (7 pts):
You don’t even need an expert. If the average tariff is 15% and you need to supplant $4 trillion in income tax, you’re going to need to import $26 trillion of foreign made goods. Our entire GDP is $31T. That means roughly 84% of all American jobs will have to be eliminated and moved overseas in order to generate $4T in tariffs. And those 140 million laid off Americans will need to maintain their current spending level on everything, plus another 15% tariff, forever, while no longer having any income.

That 78 million Americans can’t figure this out says more about the failure of our culture than it says about Trump.

u/scott042 (5 pts):
I love how he claims foreign country’s pay the Tariffs. We have been paying the tariffs since he took office. Why do you think prices are so high.