The Big Winners—and Losers —in the Inflation Bill

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The House won’t take up Democrats’ sweeping $430 billion package of spending on energy and healthcare initiatives and tax proposals until it returns today. But its effects are already reverberating through the economy.

If passed by the House and signed by President Joe Biden, as expected, the bill will affect a variety of companies, industries, government agencies and people. 

Already approved by the Senate, the proposals aim at boosting domestic energy production, extending healthcare benefits and lowering the costs of prescription drugs, and increasing federal tax enforcement.

Here are some of the potential winners and losers:

Winners: Electric Vehicle Makers and Renewable Energy

The bill provides $369 billion of tax credits and other payouts to producers of clean or renewable energy, from solar panels to wind turbines to biofuels, as well as subsidies for consumers.

It could be good news for

Tesla

(ticker: TSLA) because it makes more electric vehicles eligible for a $7,500 tax credit for buyers. But the bill also caps the price of a car eligible for the tax credit to $55,000, which would only apply to

Tesla
’s
lower-priced vehicles. Other EV makers that could benefit include

Ford Motors

(F),

General Motors

‘ (GM) Chevrolet unit and

Hyundai

(

HYMTF

). 

The bill is a mixed blessing for oil-and-gas companies. It calls for the federal government to lease drilling rights on federal land and in the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas producers before wind and solar projects can receive similar permits. That could open up new drilling opportunities. Among the biggest operators in the Gulf today are Shell (SHEL), BP (

BP

), and Chevron (CVX).

Sen. Joe Manchin (D., WVa.) also secured assurances from congressional leaders and President Biden that they’ll streamline the oil and gas permitting process before the end of the fiscal year, speeding approval of projects such as energy pipelines.

The bill also increases tax credits for companies that trap carbon emissions from industrial plants and pump it underground, and extends those credits through 2033. Companies that are betting on that technology include Exxon Mobil (XOM), Denbury (DEN), Chevron, and Occidental Petroleum (OXY).

Losers: Drugmakers

Prescription drug provisions in the bill aim to cut the deficit $287.6 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Notably, it gives Medicare the authority to negotiate drug prices with drugmakers, initially focusing on 10 drugs starting in 2026. Newer drugs wouldn’t be eligible for negotiation until at least nine years after their release. 

Medicare recipients would also get a $35 cap a month on insulin prices, though that cap doesn’t extend to those covered by private insurance for now. The biggest insulin makers are

Eli Lilly

(LLY),

Sanofi

(SNY), and

Novo Nordisk

(NVO).

Losers: Big Corporations 

Companies that averaged at least $1 billion in adjusted pretax profits in the past three years are subject to a 15% minimum tax. UBS found 102 companies this size that have been paying less. 

Among them: Amazon.com (AMZN), which has been paying 9%, Ford Motor (F), which has been paying 4.3%, and Tesla, which has been paying 5.3%. 

Losers: Companies That Buy Back a Lot of Their Own Stock

The bill’s 1% tax on buybacks will also apply to some of the biggest multinational companies.

Apple

(AAPL) plans to buy back up to $90 billion this year, and

Nike

(NKE) announced an $18 billion buyback program. 

Winner: Private Equity Firms 

The original bill would have funded new spending in part by closing the carried-interest loophole that allowed large alternative asset managers to pay lower taxes. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.) got that provision removed.

Winners: Taxpayers, Accountants, and Tax Preparers 

The bill provides $80 billion to beef up the Internal Revenue Service and its enforcement capacity. That could be bad news for wealthy tax cheats, but is good news for tax preparers, including

H&R Block

(HRB) and

Intuit

(INTU).

In addition, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen asked the IRS not to use the new funding to increase the chances that small businesses or Americans making less than $400,000 a year will be audited.

—Avi Salzman contributed to this article

Write to Janet H. Cho at [email protected] and Liz Moyer at [email protected]