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Tesla has $1.2B at risk from EV credits cut in Trump tax bill

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Tesla Inc.’s shares sank as Elon Musk and President Donald Trump’s simmering feud devolved into a public war of words between two of the world’s most powerful people.

Trump on Thursday said he was “very disappointed” by the Tesla chief executive officer’s criticism of the president’s signature tax policy bill. Musk fired back in several social media posts, saying in one that “without me, Trump would have lost the election.”  

The president later floated terminating federal contracts and subsidies extended to Musk’s companies and said that he had asked the Tesla and SpaceX leader to leave his administration, which Musk said was a “lie.” 

Tesla’s shares dropped 14% on Thursday in New York, the stock’s biggest decline since March 10. The rout erased about $150 billion from the electric-vehicle maker’s market value. 

The spectacle of the world’s richest person and the leader of the free world lobbing insults toward one another on social media marks a stunning breakup of a once formidable political alliance. 

Musk spent more than $250 million to help secure Trump’s return to the White House. Trump in turn deputized Musk to lead a sweeping effort to slash government spending and reshape the federal bureaucracy before the mercurial billionaire stepped back from that role last week.

At the same time, policies advanced by Trump and Republican lawmakers put billions of dollars at risk for Tesla, by far Musk’s largest business.

Trump’s massive tax bill would largely eliminate a credit worth as much as $7,500 for buyers of some Tesla models and other electric vehicles by the end of this year, seven years ahead of schedule. That would translate to a roughly $1.2 billion hit to Tesla’s full-year profit, according to JPMorgan analysts.

After leaving his formal advisory role in the White House last week, Musk has been on a mission to block the president’s signature tax bill that he described as a “disgusting abomination.” The world’s richest person has been lobbying Republican lawmakers — including making a direct appeal to House Speaker Mike Johnson — to preserve the valuable EV tax credits in the legislation.

Separate legislation passed by the Senate attacking California’s EV sales mandates poses another $2 billion headwind for Tesla’s sales of regulatory credits, according to JPMorgan. 

Taken together, those measures threaten roughly half of the more than $6 billion in earnings before interest and taxes that Wall Street expects Tesla to post this year, analysts led by Ryan Brinkman said in a May 30 report.

Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The House-passed tax bill would aggressively phase-out tax credits for the production of clean electricity, and other sources years earlier than scheduled. It also includes stringent restrictions on the use of Chinese components and materials that analysts said would render the credits useless and limits the ability of companies to sell the tax credits to third parties.

Tesla’s division focused on solar systems and batteries separately criticized the Republican bill for gutting clean energy tax credits, saying that “abruptly ending” the incentives would threaten U.S. energy independence and the reliability of the power grid.

The clean energy and EV policies under threat were largely enacted as part of former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. The law was designed to encourage companies to build a domestic supply chain for clean energy and electric vehicles, giving companies more money if they produce more batteries and EVs in the U.S. Tesla has a broad domestic footprint, including car factories in Texas and California, a lithium refinery and battery plants.

With those Biden-era policies in place, U.S. EV sales rose 7.3% to a record 1.3 million vehicles last year, according to Cox Automotive data.

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Accounting

On the move: HCVT hired CAS co-leader

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Grant Thornton names new CFO; CTCPA installs board of directors; and more news from across the profession.

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Accounting

Tech news: Karbon Practice Management evolves into Practice Intelligence

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Automation platform Quadient announced the acquisition of Serensia, a French electronic invoicing platform provider accredited by the French government as a Partner Dematerialization Platform (PDP). With ownership of a Peppol access point—a secure gateway for document exchange—Quadient can now offer a compliant, end-to-end e-invoicing solution to the millions of companies across Europe that will be required to transition to electronic invoicing under upcoming regulatory mandates. … Accounting solutions provider Sage announced a partnership with CPA.com which licenses select AICPA resources to train Sage Copilot, its generative AI assistant designed to support accountants and finance teams with authoritative, context-aware guidance. The announcement was made at Sage Future, the company’s flagship global customer event, held this week in Atlanta. … Small business accounting platform Xero announced that users who have an account with payments company Stripe can now use Tap To Pay on iPhone, enabling Xero customers in the US with a Stripe account to seamlessly and securely accept in-person contactless payments with their iPhone and the Xero Accounting app — no additional hardware or payment terminal needed. Tap to Pay on iPhone enables businesses to accept all forms of contactless payments, including contactless credit and debit cards, Apple Pay, and other digital wallets. … Trust and security compliance automation solutions provider Scytale announced the acquisition of AudITech, a provider of Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) IT General Controls (ITGC) automation solutions, which integrates with a company’s IT General Control system and audits all controls and populations daily. This acquisition will enable Scytale to offer security, privacy, and AI compliance automation for standards like SOC 2, ISO 27001, and now SOX ITGC in one platform. … Business aviation solutions provider MySky is acquiring the State Tax Guide from Jet Support Services Inc (JSSI), significantly expanding the capabilities of its MySky Tax solution. This acquisition offers users comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date U.S. state aviation tax information, which will soon be seamlessly embedded within the platform. … Accounting firm-focused payments solutions provider CPACharge announced a new partnership with SafeSend, part of Thomson Reuters. This new partnership will make it easier for tax and accounting firms to get paid as clients receive their tax returns, as well as allows firms to embed CPACharge directly into the workflow for SafeSend One, SafeSend’s flagship product.

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Trump said to be open to lowering SALT cap in GOP tax bill

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President Donald Trump told Senate Republicans he is open to a state and local tax deduction cap lower than the $40,000 in the House-passed version of his giant tax bill, a person familiar with the matter said. 

Trump signaled his position in a meeting with Senate Finance Committee Republicans on Wednesday, and the comments added momentum to Senate GOP efforts to enact a lower SALT cap. 

That push has led to resistance from the House, with Speaker Mike Johnson telling Bloomberg TV Thursday he is fighting to keep the $40,000 cap as it is. 

After the White House meeting Wednesday, Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo lamented about the cost of the House bill’s SALT cap. 

“There’s not a single Republican senator from New York, New Jersey or California, so there’s not a strong sentiment in the Republican conference to do $350 billion for states that the other states subsidize,” Crapo told reporters.   

Crapo’s top priority for the Senate tax bill is extending a bevy of temporary business tax breaks in the House bill that would expire after 2029, including enhanced interest expensing and deductions on research, development and equipment. Crapo is looking to trim other aspects of the House bill in order to offset the added cost of making those breaks permanent. 

He said that a decision had not yet been made on whether to lower the SALT cap or to what level. Under current law, individuals and couples can deduct $10,000 in state and local taxes if they itemize on their tax returns. 

Johnson said that the higher cap is crucial for the House to be able to pass the final version of the tax bill when it is sent back from the Senate later in the summer. He said he has made that clear to the Senate GOP.

“I told my friends I am crossing the Grand Canyon on a piece of dental floss,” he said.

The Washington Post first reported Trump’s openness to a smaller cap. 

“The White House is working closely with leaders in Congress to ensure that this landmark legislation gets over the finish line,” said spokesperson Kush Desai.

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