How the 2025 Tax Law Boosted Allied Photochemical

Allied Photochemical is feeling the positive effects of last year’s landmark tax law.

Bonus depreciation and R&D expensing: H.R. 1’s permanent reinstatement of the 100% bonus depreciation rate and immediate expensing for domestic research and development has had a major impact on the UV-coatings manufacturer.

• Those two provisions “are [where] we’re getting the biggest benefit from the bill and it’s having the desired effect,” Allied Photochemical President Dan Sweetwood told the NAM in a recent interview.
• “The 100% bonus depreciation makes a difference because we’re investing, as we grow the business, in better manufacturing equipment. So it helps with things like mixers, tanks … [and our] new hot box, which is bigger,” he said, referring to a thermal processing enclosure designed to heat raw materials and reduce their viscosity.
• “We’re a chemistry company, but we have to sometimes improve the process for the customer … so we may invest in a lot of equipment that has nothing to do with chemistry. … We spend a lot of money” on research and development, Sweetwood added.

The estate tax: H.R. 1 also increased and made permanent the estate tax exemption, shielding family-owned businesses from heavy tax burdens upon the death of their owners.

• As a majority family-owned firm, the Macomb, Michigan-based Allied Photochemical will gain from the estate tax provision, Sweetwood said.

Growth: “If we’re able to execute on our growth plans, there’s no question we’ll be hiring more people we need, especially on the service side,” he went on.

• “We’ll need more formulators, we’ll need more equipment, more production workers for sure. We have a fairly high confidence that we’ll be able to execute on these plans [thanks to] the bill.”

The big takeaway: H.R. 1 has allowed Allied to put more of its capital back into the company—and that will continue to make a big difference down the line.

• “What it really boils down to is the bill allows us to invest more in the business so we can get to [our] goals more quickly,” Sweetwood said. “So investments that we might have made next year, we can pull forward to this year.”

Learn more: Explore the NAM’s tax advocacy here, including its new “Manufacturing Tax Wins Across America” flipbook, featuring 50 success stories driven by the permanent pro-growth tax provisions in H.R. 1—one from every state, with Allied Photochemical representing Michigan.