Corporate America and its billionaire allies are rallying to protect and expand the windfall they enjoyed from the 2017 Trump tax cuts, through new multimillion-dollar campaigns and efforts by pro-industry groups run by wealthy investors and corporate henchmen. An Accountable.US review of two of these groups found their boards and staffs are overwhelmingly filled with uber-wealthy individuals or corporate lobbyists and executives.

  • Advancing American Freedom (AAF), which has launched a $10 million campaign to protect the Trump tax cuts, is run by corporate consultants, lobbyists, lawyers, and executives, including former Trump administration officials who were directly responsible for the TCJA:
    • Including Chairman Marc Short, 6 of AAF’s 8 board members are corporate lobbyists, lawyers, or executives who could benefit from protecting the Trump tax cuts. These figures have represented major firms, funneled millions to right-wing and anti-tax groups, and helped companies win tax breaks.
  • The Club for Growth is a notorious anti-tax group whose foundation arm has pushed a deeper corporate tax cut plan as an “opening salvo” in the current tax debate. The billionaire funders of the group’s action arm have benefited enormously from the TCJA, saving hundreds of millions of dollars from a single obscure tax break for pass-through entities:
    • Club for Growth Action’s billionaire backers have benefited enormously from the Trump Tax Cuts. Richard Uihlein, who has given the group’s action arm $87.7 million, saved $215 million from the TCJA’s special tax break for pass-through entities in 2018 alone. And Diane Hendricks, who has given $4.5 million, saved $36 million from the same tax break in 2018.
    • 7 of Club for Growth’s 9 board members—including one-time billionaires, an apartment corporation CEO, several elite investors, and wealthy free-market radicals—have personal stakes in protecting the Trump tax cuts.
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