The Latest: Trump warns Democrats about opposing tax plan

The Latest on Republican efforts to overhaul the tax code (all times EDT):

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5:45 p.m.

President Donald Trump has issued a thinly warning threat to Democrats who might oppose the Republican tax plan.

That's according to Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat who attended a White House meeting on the issue Wednesday.

Brown says Trump told senators, "I couldn't imagine being a Democrat and running in 2018 having voted against" the GOP tax legislation.

Brown notes that most of the Democratic members of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee who were invited to the meeting are up for re-election next year in states Trump won in 2016. Brown is among them.

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Trump and Republican leaders in Congress are casting the tax plan as a boon to the middle class. Democrats say it would mostly benefit wealthy individuals and big corporations.

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4:30 p.m.

President Donald Trump tells senators that "maybe someday you'll see my taxes."

The president made the evidently facetious comment in a White House meeting about tax legislation Wednesday with Republicans and Democrats on the Finance Committee.

It was a reference to Trump's refusal to release his tax returns, as past presidents and presidential candidates have done.

The comment was confirmed by a Senate aide briefed on the exchange, who demanded anonymity to disclose details of a private meeting.

— Congressional Correspondent Erica Werner

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3:50 p.m.

Millions of Americans would lose a prized tax break under President Donald Trump's sweeping revamp of the tax code, but corporations would get to keep it.

The Republican proposal would eliminate the federal deduction for state and local taxes, a widely popular break used by some 44 million Americans, especially in high-tax, Democratic-leaning states like New York, New Jersey, California and Illinois. But corporations, which pay billions in local property levies and state income taxes, wouldn't be affected.

Republicans are determined to overhaul the nation's tax system by year's end, offering a plan that lowers the corporate tax rate from 36 percent to 20 percent and reduces the number of tax brackets. Trump and the GOP cast the plan as a boon to the middle class.