Ellwood Grows Thanks to 2025 Tax Law

Metals producer Ellwood has grown by about 25–30% in 2026—thanks in large part to the 2025 tax law.

The details: The Pennsylvania-based manufacturer has benefited greatly from H.R. 1’s immediate research-and-development expensing and bonus depreciation provisions.

• “When [we] buy a piece of equipment, it’s a million dollars—and that’s a smaller piece of equipment,” Ellwood Chief Financial Officer Rich Davis told the NAM during an interview. “In a business like ours, [if] … you have five or six of those smaller projects that get immediate depreciation, that’s a meaningful [deduction].”
• Since the business does a significant amount of research, “having that ability to immediately expense the R&D is as beneficial as bonus depreciation,” Davis added.

New facility tax help: Ellwood, which sells to aviation and defense manufacturers, is currently building a $90-million-plus vacuum induction melting facility for critical metal components.

• “The products that we’ll be making out of this vacuum induction melting [facility] are critical-application-type components,” Davis said. “Think of the most critical materials and components [parts] in nuclear power plants and rotating engine parts in airplanes.”
• The firm is also exploring how H.R. 1’s factory expensing provision could help fund the project, Davis said.

Enabling reinvestment: Manufacturing requires constant reinvestment to stay competitive, Davis pointed out.

• “This is a very, very heavy-capital industry. If you are not constantly reinvesting, you are going to get run over by the competition. So provisions like [those in H.R. 1] that allow us to use immediate expensing and reduce our tax liabilities make it much easier to continue that reinvestment strategy.”

A ripple effect: Davis said H.R. 1 has also benefited the large manufacturers that buy from Ellwood.

• “We’ve seen an uptick in [sales to] most industry sectors we participate in” since the tax law’s passage, he noted.

Learn more: Read up on the NAM’s tax advocacy here, and check out its new “Manufacturing Tax Wins Across America” flipbook, featuring 50 success stories driven by the permanent pro-growth tax provisions in H.R. 1.