U.S. President Donald Trump signed the Republican tax overhaul bill into law Friday, officially implementing the largest legislative achievement of his first year in office.
The president signed the bill late on Friday morning, before he was scheduled to go to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida for the holidays.
After a big ceremony on Thursday to celebrate the House and Senate passing the bill earlier in the week, there was some question as to when the White House would formally sign the bill. The plan appears to have been to leave the formal signing off until January, but Trump said he moved the timing up to Friday.
“I didn’t want you folks to say I wasn’t keeping my promise. I’m keeping my promise,” he told reporters in the White House.
The tax package, the largest such overhaul since the 1980s, slashes the corporate rate from 35 per cent to 21 per cent and reduces the tax burden for most individuals as well.
Many of the personal tax cuts are scheduled to expire several years down the line, but the corporate tax cuts will be permanent.