Passage of Pro-Growth Tax Provisions in "One Big,

Beautiful Bill" are Critical for Indiana Manufacturers

By Andrew Berger, President/CEO, Indiana Manufacturers Association

Congress is currently working out the final version of the massive tax and budget reconciliation “One Big, Beautiful Bill” (OBBB) and Indiana’s manufacturers have a lot at stake.

As it stands, the bill has several major provisions that will spur manufacturing investment in Indiana, help our global competitiveness, and preserve thousands of manufacturing jobs.

These provisions include:

• A permanent pass-through deduction and retention of pro-growth individual and corporate tax rates;

• Permanence for pro-growth tax policies like immediate R&D expensing, full expensing for capital equipment purchases and a pro-growth interest deductibility standard; and

• Pro-manufacturing reforms to the international tax system that protect America’s competitiveness on the world stage.

In addition to these critical provisions, the OBBB also contains targeted tax relief for small businesses, tax relief for overtime workers (a provision that directly helps many manufacturing employees) and even provisions that will help the RV industry, of which Indiana is a global leader.

Perhaps most importantly, the Council of Economic Advisors estimates that approximately 134,000 Hoosier jobs would be at risk if the OBBB failed to pass and taxes on businesses went up. Most of those jobs are in manufacturing.

Some improvements can still be made. The OBBB should protect the renewable energy incentives and investments that have spurred billions of dollars of additional investment in Indiana. Programs, like the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), which are specifically designed to help manufacturing businesses grow, should be funded. Like tax incentives for research and development, the ROI for these provisions is outstanding.

For Indiana manufacturers the OBBB means capital to build, tools to modernize and the confidence to hire. Indiana has done a lot to put our manufacturing businesses in a position to ride the production reshoring wave. Passage of the OBBB will do even more.