The Trump administration is moving on two economic fronts that critics say starkly reveal its priorities—expanding tax breaks for wealthy corporations while cutting food aid for low-income Americans. Through new Treasury guidance weakening the Biden-era Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax and a Department of Agriculture directive warning states not to issue full Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, the administration is channeling billions toward investors as millions face reduced nutrition support.
The Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax, or CAMT, was created under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act signed by President Joe Biden. The law requires large U.S. corporations to pay a minimum 15 percent tax on “book profits,” the earnings they report to shareholders. The measure was intended to prevent profitable companies from exploiting loopholes that allow them to pay little or nothing in federal taxes. As the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy explained, “Many of the special breaks that corporations use to avoid taxes work by allowing companies to report profits to the IRS that are much smaller than their book profits. Corporate leaders prefer to report low profits to the IRS (to reduce taxes) and high profits to the public (to attract investors).”
Since returning to office, the Trump administration has issued new guidance and proposed rules aimed at loosening the tax. The changes provide sweeping relief for corporations and private equity groups, while raising questions from lawmakers about legality and fairness.
According to The New York Times, “with its various tax relief provisions, the administration is now effectively adding hundreds of billions of dollars in new breaks for big businesses and investors” on top of the trillions of dollars in tax cuts included in the Trump-GOP budget law enacted over the summer. The paper added, “The Treasury is empowered to write rules to help the IRS carry out tax laws passed by Congress. But the aggressive actions of the Trump administration raise questions about whether it is exceeding its legal authority.”
Those concerns were echoed in Congress. In a September 8 letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a group of Democratic lawmakers and Sen. Angus King of Maine warned that the administration’s new guidance “create new loopholes in the corporate alternative minimum tax for the largest and wealthiest corporations.”
“Most troubling, Notice 2025-27, issued this June, allows companies to avoid CAMT if their income—under a simplified accounting method—is below $800 million,” the lawmakers wrote. “The Biden administration previously set the safe harbor threshold precisely at $500 million in its proposed CAMT rule after calculating that a higher safe harbor threshold would risk exempting corporations that should be subject to CAMT under statute.”
They added, “Now, less than nine months later and with zero justification, this new guidance summarily asserts that an $800 million safe harbor will not run that risk. We are seriously concerned that this cursory loosening of CAMT enforcement will simply allow more wealthy corporations to avoid paying their legally owed share.”
While the Treasury Department expands tax relief for the corporate sector, the administration’s approach to social programs has taken a sharply different direction. On Saturday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a memo threatening to penalize states that do not “immediately undo” full November SNAP payments after the Supreme Court temporarily allowed the administration to withhold billions of dollars in aid. The memo warned that “failure to comply” could “result in USDA taking various actions, including cancellation of the federal share of state administrative costs and holding states liable for any overissuances that result from the noncompliance.”
The Supreme Court action by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson temporarily blocked a lower court ruling that had required the administration to fully distribute benefits during the ongoing government shutdown. The USDA initially took steps to follow the lower court order but reversed course after the high court’s intervention, triggering confusion for states and millions of recipients.
Some states, including Massachusetts and California, had already issued full benefits. Others halted payments after the USDA memo. Many families discovered full benefits deposited in their accounts just hours before the administration instructed states to stop distributions.
Rep. Angie Craig, the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, condemned the move. She said it appeared the administration was “demanding that food assistance be taken away from the households that have already received it.” Craig added, “They would rather go door to door, taking away people’s food, than do the right thing and fully fund SNAP for November so that struggling veterans, seniors, and children can keep food on the table.”
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said in response to the memo, “In the dead of night, the Trump administration ordered states to stop issuing SNAP benefits. This president will stop at nothing to take food out of the mouths of hungry kids across America. Soulless.”
Under the administration’s partial funding plan, the average recipient would lose 61 percent of their aid and millions would see their benefits reduced to zero, according to one analysis.
Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research & Action Center, said in a statement that “the Trump administration all along has had both the power and the authority to ensure that SNAP benefits continued uninterrupted, but chose not to act and to actively fight against providing this essential support.” She added, “Meanwhile, millions of Americans already struggling to make ends meet have been left scrambling to feed their families. Families and states are experiencing undue stress and anxiety with confusing messages coming from the administration. The Trump administration’s decision to continue to fight against providing SNAP benefits furthers the unprecedented humanitarian crisis driven by the loss of the nation’s most important and effective anti-hunger program.”
The combined effect of these policies illustrates the administration’s shifting priorities. As Treasury’s new rules shield corporations from tax liability, the Department of Agriculture’s directive threatens food aid for veterans, seniors, and children. Lawmakers have called for oversight into whether Treasury exceeded its authority in rewriting CAMT regulations and whether USDA has the power to force states to retract benefits already distributed.
For millions of Americans, the result is immediate and personal. Corporations gain new avenues to avoid taxes while households struggle to navigate abrupt cuts to their grocery budgets. As both agencies act in concert, critics say the pattern is unmistakable—relief for the powerful, and austerity for those least able to bear it.
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