Reports
Meet the Billionaires and Corporate Cronies Defending the Trump Tax Scam

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:
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- 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.
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- Notably, AAF’s board also includes former Heritage Foundation president Ed Feulner, who led the group when Trump credited it for being “instrumental” in the 2017 tax cuts. Feulner is still on the board of Heritage, which is calling for slashing taxes even further in its extreme far-right Project 2025 manifesto.
- 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:
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- In 2024, the radically “anti-tax” Club For Growth Foundation—heavily backed by billionaires Richard Uihlein and Jeff Yass—unveiled a corporate tax cut plan as an “opening salvo” in the 2024 tax cut debate. The group notably pushed Republicans to slash taxes even further as the TCJA passed in 2017, claiming its $1.5 trillion in tax cuts fell “‘short of pro-growth expectations.’”
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- 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.
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- 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.