On Monday, Donald Trump released his tax plan—for the most part, a classic supply-side approach that would simplify the number of tax brackets and cut the corporate rate to 15 percent. Like other Republican tax plans, Trump vows to bring in additional revenue by putting a cap on the amount wealthy people can deduct on their tax returns.

But Trump makes one promise that sets his plan apart: It will be deficit-neutral. In other words, it would pay for itself, and all those tax cuts wouldn’t make the federal deficit worse.

I did some back-of-the-envelope math on Trump’s plan to see if that’s true. The short answer: There’s no way the plan is deficit neutral.

Even with the most optimistic assumptions, Trump’s plan will still significantly reduce the total amount of money the government takes in. That might appeal to a lot of conservatives, but it will also definitely increase the federal deficit.

Here’s how the plan shakes out—with the caveat that this is a very rough estimate. (Keep an eye on the Tax Policy Center and Tax Foundation, whose wonks will no doubt try to provide a more authoritative score.)

The first big bite comes from his change in the tax rates. Trump’s plan would reduce the current seven tax brackets to four, with a 0 percent rate applying to all those making less than $25,000 ($50,000 for married couples). Those making between $25,000 and $50,000 ($50,000 and $100,000 for married couples) would pay at a 10 percent rate, and those making between $50,000 and $150,000 would pay at a 20 percent rate. Americans making more than $150,000 would pay at a 25 percent rate.

So most Americans will be paying less tax, including 73 million Americans who, Trump says, will pay nothing. Determining the exact total revenue hit from this plan is challenging, but there’s no question the loss would be large. Consider: Sens. Mike Lee and Marco Rubio’s tax plan would have just two brackets, at 15 percent for people with incomes below $75,000 and 35 percent for those above that threshold—and those changes would cost more than $300 billion over 10 years. Trump’s plan doesn’t get close to their top rate. And he’d have fewer people paying the top rate than Rubio-Lee would. So it’s fair to say the revenue loss from his new filing brackets would significantly exceed $300 billion.

Trump would also eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax (cost: $400 billion), the estate tax (cost: $269 billion), and Obamacare’s 3.8 percent surcharge tax on capital gains and dividends (cost: $123 billion).

Finally, on corporate taxes, he’d lower the rate from 35 percent to 15 percent. This alone would cost $2.5 trillion.

So how does he close that gap? Trump has four ideas. First, he would curtail tax deductions for the “very rich.” This includes eliminating the carried interest loophole that benefits hedge-fund managers, and limiting itemized deductions (though the mortgage interest deduction and the deduction for charitable contributions are exempted). Without further details, it’s hard to know how much money this would raise. But the carried-interest loophole, though it’s received outsized political attention, is fiscally minor. Closing it would bring in only about $15 billion over 10 years. And the change to itemized deductions is effectively just capping the deduction for state and local taxes. If Trump eliminated that tax break for the top quintile—a generous assumption—it would raise around $650 billion over 10 years. He’d also give the rich less ability to claim the personal exemption and close other unnamed loopholes.

Second, Trump would tax the more than $2 trillion of corporate income stashed abroad at a 10 percent mandatory rate, raising more than $200 billion. He’d also end the deferral of taxes on corporate income earned abroad, which costs the government over $800 billion over 10 years. Since Trump is lowering the corporate rate to 15 percent, the revenue effects from eliminating deferral would be far less than $800 billion.

(There are other difficult-to-estimate policies I’ve ignored here, such as allowing small businesses to pay taxes at the 15 percent rate, which would cost money, and phasing in a cap on the deductibility of business interest expense and closing unnamed corporate tax loopholes, both of which would bring in money. Without more information, it’s impossible to know how much.)

Add it all up and you have—approximately—$4-5 trillion in tax cuts with less than $2 trillion in new revenue. The total cost? $2-3 trillion. That’s an enormous gap.

Even if you use “dynamic scoring”—taking into account that lower taxes are likely to boost economic growth and thus bring in additional revenue—it’s impossible to see how this plan would break even.

Who would be the winners of the Trump tax plan? The rich. The top tax rate falling from 39.6 percent to 25 percent will give them a huge windfall, as will eliminating the AMT, the estate tax for their heirs, and the Obamacare surtax on capital gains and dividends. The huge cut in the corporate income tax will also benefit the well-off. Even worse: Trump doesn’t say what we will do with the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is a financial lifeline for low-income Americans. Eliminating it would cause significant hardship for the poor—while also going against the current political agreement around the effectiveness of the EITC. (The campaign didn’t return an email asking for more information.)

Trump has made a lot of hay as a “populist” candidate, exploiting rank-and-file Republicans’ mistrust for the elites who sell out to Wall Street and Big Business. In this case, the plan is a handout to those elites, giving them a big tax cut while cutting government revenues by trillions of dollars. Whether it will make them any happier with Trump the candidate, of course, is another story.

Authors: