Senate Republicans are intent on extending TCJA provisions that allow businesses to immediately expense capital investments.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has signaled to members and conservative groups that the president is supportive of Senate Republicans’ plan to make permanent several business-friendly provisions in the 2017 tax bill as part of this year’s reconciliation package, sources familiar with the matter tell National Review.
The Senate GOP leader’s confidence in the White House’s support for expensing permanency is a major boon to members of the Senate Finance Committee who have spent months lobbying to make expiring business-related provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) permanent.
Thune and company argue that making these tax incentives permanent would give businesses greater certainty by allowing them to immediately expense capital investments and not have to abide by a depreciation schedule, a tweak they believe will incentivize investment by providing a more stable tax code, as well as boosting growth, wages, and job creation in the long run.
As written, the House GOP–drafted legislation only extends full expensing for research and development, bonus depreciation for equipment and machinery, and interest deductibility through 2029, while expanding temporary full expensing for new factories through 2028.
To lower the TCJA price tag, 2017 tax-writers allowed 100 percent expensing for some capital investments through 2022 but decreased that expensing provision by 20 percent each tax year through expiration in 2027.
Many Senate Republicans have been wary of repeating that temporary model in this year’s tax package, even though permanent full expensing carries a higher price tag. In February 2025, Republican members of the Senate Finance Committee – including Thune and Finance Chairman Mike Crapo (R., Idaho) — signed a letter to the president, Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.), and Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R., Mo.) warning that “we will not support a tax package that only provides temporary relief from tax hikes.” Senator Steve Daines (R., Montana), the lead signatory on that letter, has said repeatedly that permanence is a red line for him and that he will vote against any bill that does not include these business tax incentives.
Thune’s private comments on the matter come as Senate Republicans are preparing to release their version of the bill in the coming days.
“President Trump has been straightforward about his tax priorities and is working closely with the Senate to deliver the largest tax cut for middle and working class Americans in history,” a senior White House official told National Review when pressed about Thune’s private comments. “The One Big Beautiful Bill is a once in a lifetime opportunity to make the very successful Trump tax cuts permanent, eliminate taxes on tips and overtime, and deliver real relief for hardworking Americans — just as he promised.”
Last week, Senate Finance Committee members Ron Johnson told Politico that the White House pitched Senate Republicans on temporary expensing provisions “to spur investment early on.” Following that meeting, Punchbowl also reported that, as of last Wednesday, White House aides remained skeptical that permanence was the right strategy, though Thune’s latest comments to members and conservative groups suggest a change in tune from the administration behind closed doors.
That reported skepticism from White House aides also followed a recent report from the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers in May, which details the short- and long-term benefits that permanent expensing extensions would have on investment, GDP growth, and real wages and take-home pay.
If Senate Republicans follow through on their push to make expensing provisions permanent, they’ll likely need to find offsets in other parts of the bill, where divisions remain in the Senate GOP over modest Medicaid reforms, clean energy tax credit phaseouts, and the expiring $10,000 state and local tax (SALT) deduction.
Republican senators are expected to amend the House-passed $40,000 write-off, arguing that the deduction unfairly benefits high earners in blue states and subsidizes Democratic state lawmakers’ high-tax policies.
But House Republicans warn that any changes to the House-passed bill will present major challenges to final passage. After all, Speaker Mike Johnson can only afford a handful of defections, and a vocal faction of blue-state Republicans are threatening to vote against any Senate GOP-drafted bill that changes the House-passed SALT language.
“The SALT issue is a particularly sensitive one for those of us from New York,” says Representative Nicole Malliotakis (R., N.Y), a member of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. “This was well thought out and negotiated in the House. It obtained the majority in a very fragile situation.”
“We can’t afford for this thing to implode,” she added. “There’s just too much at stake.”