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Whichever candidate prevails in November will immediately become the strongest voice in a bitter fiscal debate that will consume Washington in 2025.

Policymakers will have to decide what to do about the cuts signed into law in 2017, which expire at the end of the next president’s first year in office.

There is one area of ​​significant agreement in the extended debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump: both believe that taxpayers making under $400,000 a year should see their tax cuts expanded.

But that’s about it. The two nominees disagree on how to pay for the tax, and both want to push other far-reaching — not to mention expensive — priorities into any final bill.

What Trump is promising is a full extension of the cuts for people at all income levels included in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, along with a dizzying array of additional promises from no taxes on tips and overtime to lower taxes for big business.

In total, a full Trump tax agenda comes with a price tag of nearly $9 trillion over the next decade, according to Center for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB). And him arranged in a concrete way to pay for everything.

Harris, meanwhile, has signaled a different approach to taxes — only pushing to expand cuts for those making less than $400,000 a year, along with further expansion of things like tax credit for children and the earned income tax credit.

But it’s still a high price, probably more than $4 trillion, with the vice president setting tax hikes elsewhere to try to balance the costs.

“The makeup of Congress is critical,” said Charles Myers, president and founder of Signum Global Advisors and a former adviser to the likes of Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.

Read more: Trump vs. Harris: 4 ways the next president could hurt your bank accounts

He noted that a scenario in which either president faces at least one chamber of Congress controlled by the opposition, which he sees as the most likely scenario, would quickly force a massive drop in expectations.

“As long as we’ve divided Congress,” he said in a recent interview, “literally almost every tax proposal, whether it’s Trump promising to cut taxes for everybody (for) Harris’ corporate tax , taxation of unrealized gains, none of that. it happens”.

The federal corporate tax rate of 21% will also be central to the upcoming debate. Trump is pushing for a rate lower than 15%. Harris supports pushing it up to 28%.

The debate will also have a great effect on the $35 trillion national debt. The question is perhaps how much different approaches would add to this, rather than any realistic chance of debt relief.

Conformable at CRFBTrump’s full agenda could result in $1.65 trillion to $15.55 trillion in new red ink over the next decade. Harris, meanwhile, could add between $0.3 trillion and $8.3 trillion with her pledges.

For Donald Trump, an issue that defines the presidency

Tax cuts are an absolutely central issue for Trump.

The 2017 law has been Trump’s signature legislative achievement in office, with further cuts an issue he has talked about incessantly in public and private settings.

“In all my years, I’ve never seen anybody run for office saying we’re going to raise your taxes,” Trump said. said a recent crowd in North Carolina to Harris.

He also put taxes at the heart of his closing argument, offering at least 11 new promises cut in the final weeks of the campaign, in addition to extending that bill for 2017.

He has even flirted with ideas that would completely reshape the tax code, repeatedly voicing support for eliminating income taxes.

One recent podcast appearance with Joe Rogan, Trump has abandoned the idea he had been toying with in recent months to eliminate income taxes entirely because, in his view, the tariffs would bring in so much.

“You just gave up on the idea of ​​getting rid of income taxes and replacing them with tariffs? Are we serious about this?” the podcast host asked Trump at one point.

“Yeah, sure,” Trump replied. “Why not?”

It’s part of a fascination Trump has expressed the 1890s and the era of William McKinley — one of the last times in US history, and before income taxes, when tariffs were at the center of US government policy and budgeting.

Economists said Trump’s 2024 math doesn’t add up, with tariffs currently contributing less than 2 percent of federal revenue.

It’s a plan Congress should sign up for, too, and is seen as unlikely to gain traction outside the right wing of the Republican caucus on Capitol Hill. As it stands, many Republicans they were cautious even Trump’s less disruptive tax proposals, with concerns about how the budget deficit could explode.

But where Republicans sweep are Trump’s promises, from eliminating tip taxes, overtime and Social Security benefits to new tax incentives for homebuyers and even a tax reversal that he instituted when he was in office.

In a notable twist, Trump is now committing to reverse the $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions (SALT) that he himself signed into law.

And he could have bipartisan support for at least some of his plans if he’s in the Oval Office next year to negotiate with lawmakers.

At a recent appearance in New York at the Al Smith Memorial Foundation dinner, Trump was greeted for almost his entire speech by a scowling Senator Chuck Schumer, who leads the Democrats in the upper chamber and will be at the table for any 2025 negotiations.

The one exception that night? When Trump reiterated his SALT pledge. Schumer offered warm applause for this one.

“We’re going to get that thing going, Chuck,” Trump said.

For Kamala Harris, an opportunity to distance herself from Biden

As for Harris, the question about her approach to any tax debate in 2025 will be what other provisions she might want to include.

She focused on tax ideas from her “Opportunity Economy” agenda that aren’t directly related to the expiring tax provisions, but a potential Harris administration will surely try to include them in any omnibus tax deal.

Harris is promising ideas such as expanding the child tax credit to $6,000 for a child’s first year of life, a new first-time home buyer credit of $25,000, and a $50,000 small business tax credit looking to get off the ground.

Charles Myers said that in a divided government scenario, there’s a chance something like the child tax credit could be included, noting it has bipartisan support. But he said it will still be an uphill climb, given the challenge of fitting this complicated provision into what will be a busy agenda that could be made more difficult by government gridlock.

“I worry that it could be a casualty of the fact that it’s going to be negotiated at the same time as the debt ceiling and the budget,” he noted.

Harris would continue many of Joe Biden’s approaches on taxes, but the issue also proved to be an opportunity to draw some distinctions with the current president.

“What we’re going to do together … is invest in working people, in middle class people, in our children,” she. said a crowd at a recent rally in Detroit.

Harris recently announced a change in her plan to pay for her agenda by approving a long-term capital gains rate for the ultra-rich of 28%. That’s about 10 percentage points lower than what Biden proposed and would apply to Americans making more than $1 million a year.

Harris also signaled his support for a Biden plan to tax unrealized capital gains on unsold holdings.

It’s a plan that would also only apply to America’s wealthiest households (even many in the literal 1% wouldn’t be affected), but it still has saw fierce rejection in the business world.

But Harris is downplaying that for now, and prominent backer Mark Cuban claimed in a recent appearance on Yahoo Finance that the idea is “not at all being discussed.”

Ben Werschkul is the Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.

Every Friday, Yahoo Finance Rachelle Akuffo, Rick Newmanand Ben Werschkul to bring you a unique look at how US politics and government affect your bottom line on Capitol Gains. Watch or listen to Capitol Gains on Apple Podcasts, Spotifyor wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

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