Kristen Altus, "Trump's 'big, ugly' tax bill faces fierce criticism from Kevin O'Leary," Fox Business (May 14, 2025)

Summary

A Fox Business article by Kristen Altus, published May 14, 2025, on Kevin O'Leary's criticism of the tax bill moving through Congress. It reports that O'Leary, chairman of O'Leary Ventures, said on Varney & Co. that the bill would give the IRS new powers to audit small businesses for up to nine years after the end of the pandemic-era Employee Retention Credit. It quotes him saying that 95% of those businesses deserve the money and that fraud exists in every government program. It also reports that the White House did not respond to a request for comment.

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Published May 14, 2025 11:05am EDT

Kevin O'Leary goes off on the 'war on small business' within the tax bill's fine print

Congress wants to give ‘new powers’ to the IRS, the ‘Shark Tank’ star warns

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O'Leary: 'It's outrageous' Congress wants 'anti-American, ugly' tax bill

O'Leary Ventures Chairman Kevin O'Leary on strengthening U.S.-Middle Eastern relationships and congressional plans to cut taxes by $4 trillion.

One popular investor and entrepreneur has aired his grievances with the proposed tax plan in President Donald Trump’s "big, beautiful bill."

"This is anti-American. It's against small business. I've never seen anything like it. You want to talk about [a] big, beautiful bill? This is a big, ugly piece of that bill. It's gotta get fixed," Kevin O’Leary said Tuesday on "Varney & Co."

"For small business[es], I'm their advocate," he added. "So I read all these bills."

The Trump White House did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment at the time of publication.

The O’Leary Ventures chairman put the onus on the end of the pandemic-era Employee Retention Credit (ERC), which gave government money to businesses that kept Americans employed throughout COVID.

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"That program's over. They want to give new powers to the IRS to audit all those small businesses for up to nine years. That's unprecedented. Why would we want to do that to small business?" he posited.

O'Leary Ventures Chairman Kevin O'Leary had harsh criticism of the first draft of Trump and Congress' "big, beautiful bill." (FOXBusiness)

"So many of these audits would occur after the period where they don't have their records," O’Leary expanded. "This is war on small business."

House Republicans released a portion of Trump’s tax agenda late on Friday evening, bringing them one step closer to completing the commander-in-chief’s federal budget proposal.

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Kevin O'Leary explains how Trump's tax deal is at the ‘core’ of everything

'Shark Tank' investor Kevin O’Leary discusses President Donald Trump announcing $8 trillion in new investments in the U.S. on ‘The Evening Edit.’

The legislation draft includes an increased child tax credit (CTC), a higher threshold for estate tax liability and codifying the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The full legislation is expected to advance through the Ways & Means Committee this week before reaching the president’s desk by July 4.

Notably absent from the rough draft was legislation around state and local tax (SALT) deduction caps, a new millionaires’ tax bracket, eliminating taxes on tips , overtime wages and Social Security checks for retirees.

But O’Leary insists some changes must be made before the president puts pen to paper and makes the plan law.

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Congressman blasts 'nonsense rhetoric' in GOP tax talks as spending issues linger

Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., lays out his vision for a 'reasonable solution' in President Donald Trump's 'big, beautiful' bill on 'The Bottom Line.'

"I read it and said, 'This can't be right. Why would they do this?'" he said. "It's outrageous that they would attack small business like this, and unprecedented to get powers to the IRS like this because it won't stop there."

"They're looking to save money. I get it, ERC saved millions of businesses," O’Leary clarified. "And some people claimed it was fraudulent. Sure, there's fraud in every government program. But 95% of these businesses deserve that money and are still in business because of that money. And now somebody says, give the IRS power to go rip into them. That's not okay."

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Fox News’ Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.

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