President Trump told his advisers on Wednesday that he doesn’t plan to try to bypass Congress and lower capital-gains taxes by indexing gains to inflation, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Trump delivered the message during an afternoon White House meeting on the capital-gains proposal. The idea has been under discussion in the White House for months and has divided Mr. Trump’s aides, with some warning privately that it could cost him politically ahead of the 2020 election, the people said.

“President Trump was thoroughly briefed on the complex economic, legal and regulatory issues, and concluded that at this time he does not feel enough of the benefits will go to the middle class,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in an email when asked for comment.

One of the people familiar with the meeting said Mr. Trump didn’t completely rule out eventually trying to index capital gains to inflation, but signaled he had no plans to do it in the short term.

Conservative groups and some Republican lawmakers had urged Mr. Trump in recent weeks to move forward with the plan.