Overall, it is hardly a serious attempt to notch a policy victory, especially considering how short it is on details. Due to its enormous tax cuts for the rich, the plan has little chance of garnering Democratic support. Since it increases the deficit after more than 10 years, it won’t pass a straight-party vote among Republicans, as it’d need to under current rules. It looks more like an attempt to appear presidential than an effort to accomplish things, as president.

A Brief Overview of the Plan

Trump’s tax plan is, for now, only about 100 words long. But as law, it would dramatically change the way individuals and businesses pay taxes.

For individuals, the plan would:

reduce the number of tax brackets from seven to three and cut the top marginal rate from 39.6 to 35 percent

double the standard deduction, while eliminating most tax breaks except for home ownership and charitable deductions

repeal several taxes, including the Alternative Minimum Tax, the estate tax, and the Obamacare tax on investment income

For businesses, the plan would:

reduce the corporate tax rate to 15 percent, paid for with unspecified cuts to “special interests” and a “one-time tax on trillions of dollars held overseas”

allow small-business owners to have their income taxed at 15 percent, as well (much more on this later)

move to a territorial tax system, in which businesses would only pay tax on income earned in the U.S. (so, Boeing wouldn’t pay taxes on planes sold to an Australian airline)

Although the White House hasn’t released many details, the Tax Policy Center (TPC) looked at a similar tax proposal from the campaign last fall. They concluded that Trump’s plan would cut taxes by $6 trillion over 10 years, with almost 50 percent of the savings going to the top 1 percent. To unpack the plan, I’m going to take a particularly close look at three of its most important components: (1) the expensive proposal to reduce the corporate tax rate to 15 percent; (2) a controversial “pass-through” provision that would allow many professionals to set up legal tax-shelters; and (3) the more straightforward changes to the individual tax code.

1) Cutting Taxes on Large Companies

The Plan: The centerpiece of Trump’s plan is to slash the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent. The U.S. has one of the highest marginal corporate tax rates in the world, even though most companies take advantage of the law’s buffet of deductions and loopholes to bring their effective tax rate well under 35 percent. The average company pays a rate of about 19 percent, while some large multinationals, like GE and Google, pay close to nothing.

The Good: There has been bipartisan interest in reforming the corporate tax code for a long time, because it’s a complicated mess. The trouble is that the very thing that makes it complicated—the sheer number of deductions and loopholes for certain industries and companies—makes it extremely difficult to alter without angering loud and rich constituents. President Barack Obama proposed cutting the rate from 35 percent to 28 percent, but his plan went nowhere. This plan would go much further, taking the U.S. from having one of the highest rates in the world to having one of the lowest. In theory, a low corporate tax rate and a simple and straightforward tax code should attract more investment and discourage multinationals from shifting their profits around the world to avoid taxes.