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ProPublica

12 Aug, 18 tweets, 5 min read

@Bechtel

(THREAD)
Right before Congress passed Trump's 2017 tax overhaul, 8 words were added.

Those few words helped the billionaire @Bechtel family deduct hundreds of millions from their taxes.

Here's how, from the Secret IRS Files:

propublica.org/article/secret…

2/ In the section of the bill about pass-through businesses (companies where the profits pass through to the owners as income), Congress inserted the language “applied without regard to the words ‘engineering, architecture.'”

3/ The Trump tax cuts allowed pass-through owners to deduct up to 20% of profits from their income taxes.

This new language was pushed by a lobbyist for the Becthel family’s giant engineering firm.

4/ Before the new language was inserted in the bill, engineering had been among the industries specifically excluded.

5/ Documents obtained via Freedom of Information Act show Bechtel executed a full-court press in D.C., meeting with Trump administration officials. In all, it spent more than $1 million lobbying on tax issues.

6/ In July 2017, company reps met with Deputy Treasury Secretary Justin Muzinich—Treasury's point person on the tax cuts—to discuss pass-throughs.

7/ Bechtel also hired two lobbying firms, including one where the chief lobbyist was Marc Gerson, a former top tax lawyer for the House Ways & Means Committee.

8/ After lawmakers added the 8 words that guaranteed the Bechtel would be able to enjoy the deduction for their pass-through income, that same lobbyist took credit for the specific change in his law firm bio:

9/ Was all the lobbying worth it?

Just look at how much the Bechtels saved on their taxes.👇

10/ CEO Brendan Bechtel netted $64 million in deductions in just 2018. He and his two siblings enjoyed a total of $111 million in deductions that year, thanks to the provision.

11/ And that's not counting the deductions that can be claimed by their father Riley Bechtel or any of the other non-family owners and board members who receive Bechtel profit.

12/ Even though Bechtel owes much of its existence to federal contracts going back to the Hoover Dam, it has long showered money on anti-tax candidates.

13/ Brendan Bechtel is a vocal critic of Biden’s proposal to use tax hikes to pay for new infrastructure, telling CNBC “It’s unfair to ask business to shoulder or cover all the additional costs of this public infrastructure investment.”

14/ A rep for Bechtel Corp. didn’t respond to questions about the company’s lobbying. The rep, as well as a representative of the family’s investment office, didn’t respond to requests to accept questions about the family’s taxes.

15/ Gerson, the lobbyist hired by Bechtel, didn't respond to questions.

16/ This is only part of the story.

Get all the details on how America’s wealthiest business owners reaped a windfall from last-minute changes to the Trump tax bill:

propublica.org/article/secret…

17/ And catch up on the full Secret IRS Files series here:
propublica.org/series/the-sec…

18/ The Secret IRS Files is an ongoing reporting project.

Sign up through the link below **OR** text “IRS” to 917-746-1447 to get each new dispatch as soon as it’s published:

propublica.org/newsletters/th…

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A thread 👇

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