Wall Street Gets A Trump Tax Break To Fire Workers

[Omaha Steve]

Lawmakers quietly added a line that effectively subsidizes Wall Street buying up companies, slashing wages, closing factories, and firing workers.

By Luke Goldstein

Congressional lawmakers have inserted a line into President Donald Trump’s new tax bill that would reward Wall Street firms with billions of dollars of new tax breaks when they load up companies with debt and proceed with worker pay cuts, factory closures, and mass layoffs, according to bill text reviewed by The Lever.

The new bipartisan provision is the culmination of a multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign by private equity giants, whose executives have been among the biggest supporters of Trump and the lawmakers behind the legislation.

The provision, which uses the tax code to effectively subsidize Wall Street firms’ takeovers of small- and medium-sized businesses, follows a landmark study demonstrating that employment quickly shrinks at companies when they are purchased by private equity firms. It also follows new data showing a record number of private equity-owned companies are being driven into bankruptcy.

The arcane provision buried in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act moving through Congress would raise the business tax deduction that private equity-owned companies can claim on interest payments they make to pay back loans.

FULL story: https://www.levernews.com/wall-street-gets-a-trump-tax-break-to-fire-workers/


President Donald Trump sits next to Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)