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President Trump on May 1, 2017, said the tax plan he released last week is a "starting point" and that he is willing to lose some of its provisions in negotiations with Congress. Meanwhile, Administration officials stressed that they did not release a more detailed plan because of their desire to work with the House and Senate and to develop support for a tax reform bill.

The President has been conducting press interviews in conjunction with his 100th day in office and his economic team has been making appearances in part to clarify their intentions and expectations with regard to the April 26 tax plan announcement. President Trump's comments were from a Bloomberg report in which he also said he would consider raising the federal gasoline excise tax to fund infrastructure investment. However, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer later clarified that the President did not express support or endorsement for a gas tax increase, and was simply mentioning what an industry group told him. On a related note, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said during a conference at the Milken Institute that an infrastructure plan would likely not be combined with the tax plan.

On CBS's Face the Nation April 30, President Trump said deficits that some see resulting from the tax plan could be made up through economic growth and a "reciprocal tax" for which he has called. "As an example, we have countries where if we make a product and we send it to that country, they charge us 100% tax. If they make the same product and send it to us, we charge them nothing. You think that's smart? It's not," President Trump said. "We're going to come up with reciprocal taxes and lots of other things on those countries. But I view that more in trade. We're also going to fix all of our trade deals. We're going to have a very wealthy country again."

Secretary Mnuchin and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn both stressed that the tax plan was kept sparse in the interest of negotiating details with Congress, and neither would provide an expectation for when a more detailed plan would be released. During a CNBC interview, Mnuchin said, "The reason we didn't come out with more details is we want to work with the House and Senate and have a joint agreement. So when we release this plan, it's something that can pass Congress and the President can sign."

Asked when additional details will be released, Mnuchin said, "As fast as we can," adding that there are meetings weekly at the leadership level and more often at the staff level. "We share similar views of what we are trying to accomplish," he said.

In response to the same question during a CBS This Morning interview, NEC Director Cohn said: "We want to get an enormous amount of input before we draft the final bill. When we deliver the final bill, we are going to have a bill that is bought into by the House and the Senate. You've just been talking about how difficult it is to get things through Congress. We understand how difficult it is to get things through Congress. We were talking about how it's designed to be difficult. We understand that. We're going make this tax bill work. And the way to make the tax bill work is to work with Congress before we draft the bill. And that's exactly what we're going do."

Asked about criticism that the Trump plan would primarily benefit high-income individuals, Cohn said it is a middle- and lower-class tax bill. "I really am confused why people don't understand what we're doing here. If you look at what we've done, we've doubled the personal exemption in this bill," he said. Cohn acknowledged that the plan calls for eliminating the estate tax, but asserted that it also would eliminate deductions that favor the wealthy.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) said last week that he doesn't plan to move a bill out of the Committee before the Administration releases a more detailed proposal, because "we're working together toward a unified tax reform plan," Bloomberg BNA reported. In the midst of a Ways and Means Republicans tax reform retreat held April 30 through May 1, Tax Notes reported Chairman Brady as saying Committee hearings on tax reform will likely begin in May but first they hope to merge the House Blueprint with proposals outlined by the White House.

Chairman Brady released a statement following the retreat that said, in part: "Yesterday, we talked about competitiveness — leapfrogging America back to one of the most productive places on earth for that new job and that new investment. Last night, we had a good discussion with Director Cohn about the President's commitment to pro-growth tax reform. And, today, we talked in more detail about middle-class tax cuts and how we simplify our broken tax code for hardworking Americans."

Specific issues under Trump plan

Asked during the CNBC interview whether the Administration is concerned that high-income individuals could benefit from the 15% business tax rate that will be available to pass-through entities, which is far lower than the proposed 35% top individual rate, Secretary Mnuchin said rules will make clear that wage earnings will be taxed as wage earnings. "We want to create the opportunities for small- and medium-sized businesses to have the benefit of the 15% rate," he said. "What we are not looking to do is somebody who should be taxed at a 35% rate for wages can go out and set up an LLC to avoid that."

He was further asked why the Administration is confident that it can prevent people from taking advantage of the rate disparity. Mnuchin said it is something the Administration is very conscious of and, "We are determined that when we come out with regulations, this is not going to be about tax avoidance."

The April 26 tax plan did not address carried interest. On ABC's This Week April 30, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said, "Carried interest is on the table and the President wants to get rid of carried interest. So that balloon's not going to stay inflated very long. I can assure you of that."