Fiscal conservatives

Special tax breaks for venture capitalists, Alaskan fisheries, spaceports, private schools, rum makers and others — together costing tens of billions of dollars — quietly caught a ride on Republicans’ sprawling domestic policy megabill.

There’s a new supersized deduction for business meals — though only for employees at certain Alaskan fishing boats and processing plants, with the measure stipulating the facilities must be “located in the United States north of 50 degrees north latitude” though not in a “metropolitan statistical area.”

There’s a $17 billion expansion of a little-known provision that enables venture capitalists to make a fortune tax-free.

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) won a carve-out for the oil and gas industry from a minimum tax on big corporations that was created during the Biden administration.

There’s a $2 billion break important to the rum industry and, tangentially, Louisiana, said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a tax writer.

“We have the highest per capita intake of alcohol in the nation,” he said.

The bill includes an expansion of a little-known break that Silicon Valley investors have used to nix tax bills on tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars in earnings from Internet startups. Another spends $26 billion to create a new $1,700 credit for people who give to groups providing scholarships for children to attend private school.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) secured a $7 billion tax cut for farmers that allows them to postpone paying some of the capital gains taxes they owe when selling off farmland.

There’s also a $1 billion provision allowing “spaceports” — which the legislation defines as “any facility located at or in close proximity to a launch site or reentry site” — to sell tax-exempt bonds, like airports. Sen. Ron Wyden, the chamber’s top Democratic tax writer, said in an X post that “Trump’s wedding gift to [Jeff] Bezos and birthday gift to [Elon] Musk were tucked in the new budget bill.”