Senate showdown over R&D tax bill

Late last week, our Advocacy team sent an update on the state of play in the Senate regarding H.R. 7024, the House-passed tax bill that includes provisions for repealing the R&D amortization mandate. As part of that communication, we asked that you continue contacting your Senators and share our Action Alert linkto encourage others to reach out.

With passage in the House, the future of this bill is in the hands of Senate Republicans. The leaders of the Senate Finance Committee - Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Ranking Member Mike Crapo (R-ID) have yet to agree on how to proceed. The sticking point is one of the child tax credit provisions in the bill. Crapo has said he is surveying Senate Republicans to gauge their concerns. Conversely, there may be a few Senate Democrats who oppose the legislation because they believe it doesn't go far enough on the child tax credit, but we expect most to be supportive. That said, while our immediate focus is on the GOP side of the aisle, we are taking nothing for granted.

And I am grateful to report that neither are you. Since the House passed H.R. 7024, you - our members - have sent 1,400 emails to your Senators. That is a strong level of engagement, but we can't let up. I don't need to remind anyone that this is an election year. Every message to your Member of Congress, every phone call to your district office, every letter you write to your local paper, and every visit to Capitol Hill compellingly recasts the issue in the light of the meaningful impact the change could have on each individual firm given their particular firm circumstance. While Congressional races are not as competitive as they once were, every Member knows that constituents whose voices are ignored tend to send more pointed messages at the ballot box on Election Day. It is no exaggeration to say that this R&D mandate is an existential threat to our industry. You have a lot of influence, and if ever there were a time to use it, now is that time.

There's an aphorism (sometimes attributed to Mark Twain) about fines being a tax for doing wrong and taxes being a fine for doing well. R&D amortization takes that a step further, taxing firms for doing good. It has almost become a cliché to say that the best businesses do well because they do good, but it isn't a cliché for engineering firms.

Nine weeks from tomorrow, we will gather for the Engineering Excellence Awards to celebrate the good that engineers do. From making travel by air, road, and rail safer, more efficient, and more accessible to creating sustainable, state-of-the-art spaces for people to work and communities to connect and thrive, the projects we will honor on May 15 are examples of innovation as the driving force behind transformative change. They are why we are fighting this R&D fight so hard - and why winning is so important.

Have a great week.