Mnuchin: August deadline for tax reform 'not realistic at this point'

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Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said Monday the Trump administration’s target date to get tax reforms through Congress and on President Trump’s desk was “not realistic at this point.”

Mnuchin said in an interview with the Financial Times that the August deadline is set to falter following setbacks with Congress over health care.

"It is fair to say it is probably delayed a bit because of the healthcare," Mnuchin told the paper.

Mnuchin added that he agreed with Trump that the dollar’s strength was hurting exports, but said he saw the strength of the dollar as a positive thing over the long term, according to Reuters.

"As the world's currency, the primary reserve currency, I think that over long periods of time the strength of the dollar is a good thing," he told the Financial Times.

Mnuchin said last month that the administration was planning to turn quickly to tax reform with the goal of getting a program approved by Congress by August. He said he had been overseeing work on the administration's bill over the past two months and it would be introduced soon. He said it would be one proposal that would cover both cutting individual and corporate taxes in the same legislation.

Mnuchin added that if the timeline was delayed, he still expected a proposal to pass by the fall.

Press secretary Sean Spicer also acknowledged last month that the August deadline was an "ambitious one" for such a comprehensive and complicated project, but he said it's a goal the administration "is going to try to stick to."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Click for more from Reuters.