ANOTHER TAX WIN: Boeing to Spend $300M on Workers and Charity

The Boeing Company, America’s largest aerospace firm, tweeted Wednesday that the just passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will allow them to spend $300 million on “employee-related and charitable investment.”

“On behalf of all of our stakeholders, we applaud and thank Congress and the administration for their leadership in seizing this opportunity to unleash economic energy in the United States,” Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said in a press release. “It’s the single-most important thing we can do to drive innovation, support quality jobs and accelerate capital investment in our country.”

“For Boeing, the reforms enable us to better compete on the world stage and give us a stronger foundation for the investment in innovation, facilities and skills that will support our long-term growth,” Muilenburg continued.

According to the same release, the exact allocation of the $300 million is still being worked out, but the broad strokes are as follows:

• $100 million for corporate giving, with funds used to support demand for employee gift-match programs and for investments in Boeing’s focus areas for charitable giving: in education, in our communities, and for veterans and military personnel.
• $100 million for workforce development in the form of training, education, and other capabilities development to meet the scale needed for rapidly evolving technologies and expanding markets.
• $100 million for “workplace of the future” facilities and infrastructure enhancements for Boeing employees.

“Each of these investments benefits Boeing’s most important strength – our employees – and reflects the real-time impact and economic benefit of the reforms,” Muilenburg explained.

Boeing was not the only corporation to announce they would take advantage of the new tax code to benefit Americans Wednesday. AT&T announced a new billion dollar employee investment scheme the same day.

The Seattle-founded and Chicago-based Boeing employs over 140,000 people, the vast majority of them in the United States. Ignoring calls from leftist commentators, the company has been, in contrast to many multinational giants, generally supportive of President Donald Trump’s America First economic agenda. In February, Boeing hosted the newly-inaugurated Trump at their state-of-the-art South Carolina “Dreamliner” plant to give his first major economic policy address.

At that time, Trump called Muilenburg a “tough negotiator,” an apparent reference to the pair’s ongoing negotiations over the price of a new Boeing jet for use as Air Force One.