{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-beyer-lawmakers-warn-treasury-against-delivering-retroactive-tax-break-to-billionaire-corporations", "Warren, Beyer, Lawmakers Warn Treasury Against Delivering Retroactive Tax Break to Billionaire Corporations", "2025-12-04", "2025", "2025-12", "Democrat", "Senate", "MA", "Elizabeth Warren", "W000817", "www.warren.senate.gov", "warren", "https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases", "scraper", "Warren, Beyer, Lawmakers Warn Treasury Against Delivering Retroactive Tax Break to Billionaire Corporations\n\nBillionaire corporations have engaged in lobbying blitz with Treasury to obtain retroactive R&E carveout from Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax\n\n\u201cWe urge Treasury not to further rig the tax code in favor of billionaire corporations.\u201d\n\nText of Letter (PDF)\n\nWashington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, along with U.S. Representative Don Beyer (D-Va.), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, led Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Representatives Danny Davis (D-Ill.), Linda S\u00e1nchez (D-Calif.), Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.), and Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) in questioning Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy Kenneth Kies on how Treasury will respond to lobbyists\u2019 push to create a loophole in the corporate alternative minimum tax (CAMT) for billionaire corporations taking massive retroactive research and experimentation (R&E) tax deductions.\n\n\u201cCorporate lobbyists are shamelessly trying to create yet another loophole and undermine this law so that profitable billionaire corporations pay little to no taxes,\u201d wrote the lawmakers.\n\nThis lobbying push follows a series of regulatory changes and industry-friendly loopholes the Trump administration has implemented to chip away at CAMT, which sets a minimum 15 percent tax rate on the book income of billionaire corporations. These changes, combined with other recent policy changes at Treasury that favor the ultra-wealthy, are set to result in hundreds of billions of dollars in lost tax revenue, according to independent estimates.\n\nCorporations are demanding this additional loophole because of how CAMT interacts with the retroactive R&E expensing tax break in Republicans\u2019 Big Beautiful Bill. Retroactive R&E expensing allows corporations to immediately deduct the full costs of R&E expenses they incurred years ago \u2014 because it is retroactive, it cannot incentivize any economic activity. This tax break is estimated to hand corporations $67 billion in 2026 and would be an even larger windfall in the absence of CAMT.\n\nIf billionaire corporations could subtract these accelerated deductions from CAMT\u2019s measure of income, their tax liability could fall far below 15% \u2014 and, in some cases, to zero. Even the conservative American Enterprise Institute opposes the creation of such a loophole, stating that \u201cit would be contrary to Congressional intent and would have no economic benefit\u201d and that it would \u201cnot encourage additional investment in R&D [research & development].\u201d\n\n\u201cThis policy would clearly undermine the purpose of CAMT: to ensure that no billionaire corporation pays a lower tax rate than 15% on the income it reports to shareholders, known as book income,\u201d the lawmakers concluded. \u201cWe urge Treasury not to further rig the tax code in favor of billionaire corporations by creating a CAMT carveout for retroactive R&E expensing.\u201d\n\nThe lawmakers requested answers on the Treasury\u2019s response to corporate demands for a carveout in CAMT for retroactive R&E expensing by December 17, 2025.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:09:11Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-beyer-lawmakers-warn-treasury-against-delivering-retroactive-tax-break-to-billionaire-corporations"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.3500191271305084, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}