On the campaign trail, Donald Trump touted how much he loved coal, coal miners, coal companies, and all things related to coal. He even vowed to end the “war on coal” and put miners back to work.
But the tax bill passed by the Senate last week, according to a coal company CEO, would devastate the industry.
Robert Murray, head of Murray Energy, one of the largest coal companies in the country, told CNN Money:
“We won’t have enough cash flow to exist. It wipes us out. This wipes out everything that President Trump has done for coal.”
The tax bill in its current form would indeed lower the corporate tax rate, but it also eliminates lots of tax breaks that coal manufacturers depend on. As CNN notes:
“For coal companies, it could be a double-whammy. It would preserve the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) and impose new limits on the interest payments that businesses can write off. Murray Energy estimates that these changes would raise its tax bill by $60 million per year.”
Murray Energy has to borrow money in order to pay for its operations. But the GOP tax bill, which is currently being hashed out by a conference committee, would cap the percentage of interest payments that can be written off at 30 percent of a company’s total income. That could be a fatal blow for Murray and other coal barons.
Murray, who has said that he knows Trump “cares about coal miners and their jobs” is now warning that if the tax bill is enacted, he may well have to declare bankruptcy, which would mean 5,500 people would lose their jobs.
Democratic critics of the Republican tax proposal have said the very fact that GOP legislators crafted their bill in private proves that those who voted for it didn’t even know what was in the legislation before they agreed to support it.
Meanwhile, Robert Murray and his thousands of workers may soon find out what happens when you’re foolish enough to believe a pathological liar and his corrupt political party.
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