Tax Law Helps Agri-Industrial Plastics Take Care of Employees, Customers

apiuploader August 12, 2026

For Agri-Industrial Plastics Company, the 2025 tax bill was a game changer.

R&D: The Iowa-based custom industrial blow molder of large-scale parts said the measures in last summer’s tax legislation have greatly improved its operations.

  • The second-generation family-owned manufacturer has benefited from the immediate research-and-development expensing and 100% full expensing provisions made permanent by H.R. 1, Agri-Industrial Plastics President Lori Schaefer-Weaton told the NAM during a recent interview.
  • The first of these, which allows businesses once again to deduct R&D expenses in full upon incurring them, “helps [our] process,” she said. “The tax breaks allow investment.”

“Death” tax certainty: Another part of the 2025 law that has benefited the 200-person, family-owned business: permanent relief from the estate tax.

  • “The biggest thing [the estate tax provision of H.R. 1 gave us] is just having time and consistency to plan,” Schaefer-Weaton said. “When the rules keep changing with the estate tax, that’s what makes it so difficult for small business to plan well.”
  • Now, thanks to the legislation, “I worry a little less about the financial transition,” she continued, because “there are some options.”

Investing in its people: The manufacturer has expanded its workforce from four employees in 1978, when Schaefer-Weaton’s father founded it, to about 200 today.

  • Pro-manufacturing policies have made much of that growth possible, Schaefer-Weaton underlined.
  • Today, Agri-Industrial Plastics is able “to invest everything back in the company to continue to grow it, to continue to sustain with things like technology and automation,” she told the NAM. “We are big on taking care of our employees and our customers. And we are in it for the long haul.”

Learn more: Check out 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