The White House's updated tax proposal is not likely to include a tax hike on the rich, a senior official said Monday.

The president's chief strategist, Steve Bannon, had been lobbying for a rate increase on the country's top earners to offset cuts for low- and middle-income Americans.

In his latest pitch, Bannon suggested that anyone making more than $5 million a year be taxed at 44 percent instead of the present rate of 39.6 percent.

Marc Short, legislative affairs director to Trump, told DailyMail.com on Monday that a rate hike would not be part of the principles that the White House submits to Congress, however.

'We believe that raising taxes is not a formula for growth, so I don't think that you will see us looking to raise rates on any particular individual or level,' Short said during a gaggle with reporters.

The White House is hell-bent on passing the tax reform package that President Donald Trump promised before the end of the year. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin (center) and Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short (right) talked about the tax push today at the Newseum

The president's chief strategist, Steve Bannon, had been lobbying for a rate increase on the country's top earners to offset cuts for low- and middle-income Americans. It won't be part of the White House's tax push, though

The White House is hell-bent on passing the tax reform package that President Donald Trump promised before the end of the year.

It's pushing an aggressive schedule that will see legislation go through mark up in both the House and the Senate in early September, then go to the floor in the lower chamber in October.

The upper chamber will take up their bill in November, according to Short's schedule.

'We will have success. This is a pass-fail exercise, and we will pass tax reform,' Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said Monday at an Americans for Prosperity event.

Short seconded Mnuchin and said: 'Not only is it something that we would like to do, it's something that we have to do this year.'

Trump is turning his attention to tax reform following the collapse of major legislation to repeal Obamacare. The president is to speak on the need for reform at a small business event on Tuesday.

The White House is hell-bent on passing the tax reform package that President Donald Trump promised before the end of the year. 'This is a pass-fail exercise, and we will pass tax reform,' Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin (left) said Monday

The new legislative push comes as Trump as revamped his White House staff, installing a telegenic new communications director in Wall Street savvy Anthony Scaramucci, who nevertheless has drawn headlines for his attacks on White House rivals.

Overseeing the new White House operation will be Gen. John Kelly, who spent four decades in the Marines but whose inclination for the complexities of tax policy tradeoffs is unknown.

Trump plans to call for a historic overhaul, Axios reported Monday.

The president, who was criticized for failing to do enough to try to build public support for the GOP's Obamacare repeal legislation, could take to the road with speeches in the industrial heartland in August, according to the report.

His first stop is in Huntington, West Virginia, on Thursday.

The president's legislative affairs director, Marc Short, (left) seconded Mnuchin and said: 'It's not only something that we would like to do, it's something that we have to do this year'

A statement of principles that congressional Republicans and the White House released last week called for cutting individual corporate tax rates 'as much as possible.'

The principles also call for quicker depreciation of business assets.

House Speaker Paul Ryan and Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady agreed to drop a border-adjusted tax in the agreement that they'd been pursing but other Republicans, including the activists at AFP, were opposing.

Short said the White House has been working 'very diligently' to make sure it's on the same page as legislators.

But the statement released was vague in many respects. It made no specific mentions of deductions to be eliminated, for example. A plan for a border adjustment tax got jettisoned, and didn't appear in the joint statement.

President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, U.S., July 31, 2017

Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin (R) and National Economic Director Gary Cohn speak about President Donald Trump's new tax reform plan during a briefing at the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on April 26, 2017 in Washington, DC

File photo shows U.S. President Donald Trump. The Trump administration on April 26, 2017 called for cutting the corporate tax rate to 15 percent from 35 percent in a new tax plan it said will help spur the U.S. economy to an annual growth rate of 3 percent or higher

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly sits during his first meeting of U.S. President Donald Trump's cabinet at the White House in Washington, U.S., July 31, 2017

In this June 7, 2017, photo, National Economic Council chairman Gary Cohn, left, shakes hands with real estate developer Steve Roth, right, as they arrive at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., to board Marine One for a short trip back to the White House after Trump spoke about healthcare and infrastructure in Cincinnati

According to the principles, congressional committees will seek to 'make taxes simpler, fairer, and lower.'

'We have always been in agreement that tax relief for American families should be at the heart of our plan. We also believe there should be a lower tax rate for small businesses so they can compete with larger ones, and lower rates for all American businesses so they can compete with foreign ones. The goal is a plan that reduces tax rates as much as possible, allows unprecedented capital expensing, places a priority on permanence, and creates a system that encourages American companies to bring back jobs and profits trapped overseas.'

Lawmakers for years have searched for a way to simplify the tax code, slash corporate income tax rates, find a way to repatriate income being held overseas, and raise revenue by getting rid of deductions.

Trump told the Wall Street Journal last week that middle-income people have gotten 'screwed,' and that a goal was to put the tax burden on upper-income people.

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"The truth is, the people I care most about are the middle-income people in this country who have gotten screwed," the president said. "And if there's upward revision, it's going to be on high-income people,' he continued.

But a nonpartisan analysis by the Tax Policy Center reveals that the group getting hit the hardest by a plan as described by the president would be upper middle-class households earning between $150,000 and $300,000.

The study found that about 20 percent of households could see an increase, the Wall Street Journal reported. About a third of the 19 million households in that income range would see taxes rise by $3,000 to $4,000 a year.

In a departure from the leadership driven, secretive process that brought about healthcare legislation that imploded last week, the joint statement calls for 'regular order' on tax reform.

'Our expectation is for this legislation to move through the committees this fall, under regular order, followed by consideration on the House and Senate floors,' it says.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said last week that ending taxation of overseas corporate profits and moving to a 'territorial' system was a 'very, very, very high priority,' the Washington Examiner reported.