In his first interview since taking office, Steven Mnuchin, the founder of several hedge funds who has also worked for Goldman Sachs, said there would be tax reform before the Congressional break in August.

Mnuchin said: ‘We are committed to pass tax reform, it will be very significant, it's going to be focused on middle income tax cuts, simplification and making the business tax competitive with the rest of the world.’

Since being elected president, Donald Trump has made a number of general statements about the need for tax reforms and reduced regulation, but has given little in the way of specifics. Mnuchin said that the administration and both chambers of Congress are ‘all working together’ on the tax plan, but that the current focus for legislation is the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, passed during Obama’s time as president.

Mnuchin said the administration is also ‘looking at’ the subject of a border adjustment tax that would put a tariff on imports. 

‘We're looking at it seriously, there are certain aspects of it that we're concerned about, there are certain aspects that we like,’ he said.

Mnuchin  suggested the administration may develop its own method for judging the impact of any new tax plan, which would include not only the impact on US tax revenues but also the impact on economic growth, and said his aim was to achieve ‘sustainable growth of 3% or more’ over the year.

‘Well, I think one of the issues when you talk about revenue neutral, there's going to be the scoring the Joint Committee uses, and then there's going to be our own internal views at Treasury and the administration. And my guess is that our growth assumptions will be higher than what they use to score the plan. So, again, these are the types of things we're looking at,’ Mnuchin said.