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⚙️ THE PLUMBING — Series 6 · FINALE
Post 8 of 8 · February 2026 · The Last Post
July 4
THE PLUMBING · Post 8 · Series 6 · The Complete Investigation · Finale
July 4, 2025
On Independence Day 2025, The One Big Beautiful Bill Was Signed Into Law as P.L. 119-21. The Estate Exemption: Raised to $15 Million Per Person, $30 Million Per Couple. No Sunset. Carried Interest: Intact at 20%. The 1031 Exchange: Intact. The Corporate Rate: Permanent at 21%. The Mechanisms That Had Been Accreting Since Elizabeth I Signed the Statute of Charitable Uses in 1601 — 424 Years Before — Were Locked In. Made Permanent. Against Future Reform Attempts. On the Fourth of July. The Barons Got Their Charter From King John at Runnymede in 1215. The Plumbing Got Its Charter on Independence Day, 2025. The Pipes Were Soldered Shut. The Machine Was Made Permanent. This Is the Last Post.
On June 15, 1215, King John met the rebellious barons of England at Runnymede, a meadow on the Thames between Windsor and Staines, and signed the document that would become the Magna Carta. Whatever its later reputation as the foundation of English liberty, the Magna Carta was, in its original purpose, a list of baronial protections against royal interference: no taxation without consent, no seizure of property without due process, no interference with inheritance, no interference with the rights and customs of the landed class. The barons had forced the king to codify their existing privileges in permanent law — to write the protections they already possessed into a document that future kings could not easily revoke. It worked, more or less. The Magna Carta became the template for the permanent codification of elite privilege against future disruption. On July 4, 2025 — the 249th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and 810 years after Runnymede — President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill into law as P.L. 119-21. The estate exemption was raised to $15 million per person, $30 million per couple, with no sunset provision. The carried interest loophole was left at 20%. The 1031 exchange was left intact. The corporate rate was made permanent at 21%. The mechanisms that had been accreting since Elizabeth I signed the Statute of Charitable Uses in 1601 were locked in — permanently — against future reform attempts. The barons got their charter in 1215. The plumbing got its charter in 2025. The date was not chosen for its symbolism. But the symbolism is exact.
The Distance Between the Two Magna Carta Moments
810
Years between Runnymede (1215) and the One Big Beautiful Bill (2025)
June 15, 1215 — Runnymede, England · July 4, 2025 — Washington, D.C.
The Magna Carta Parallel — What Both Documents Actually Did
Magna Carta — Runnymede, June 15, 1215
The Barons Codify Their Protections Against the Crown
→No taxation without consent. The king cannot levy new feudal taxes without the agreement of the Great Council — which the barons dominated. Their wealth: protected from unilateral royal extraction.
→No seizure of property without due process. The king cannot simply take a baron's land or goods without legal process. Property rights: entrenched against royal interference.
→No interference with inheritance. Heirs cannot be required to pay excessive relief to inherit their fathers' estates. The generational transfer of wealth: protected.
→Preservation of existing rights and customs. The document confirmed existing baronial privileges, preventing the crown from eroding them through future legislation or royal decree.
→Who benefited: Primarily the landed nobility. The Magna Carta's famous "no free man" clause was, in 1215, principally a protection for men wealthy enough to be considered "free" in the feudal sense — a small fraction of the population.
One Big Beautiful Bill — P.L. 119-21, July 4, 2025
The Plumbing Codifies Its Mechanisms Against Future Reform
→Estate exemption to $15M — no sunset. Estates below $15M per person ($30M per couple) pass entirely outside the estate tax. The generational transfer of wealth up to that threshold: tax-free. No future Congress can let the exemption expire without affirmative action to do so.
→Carried interest: intact. Despite bipartisan rhetoric spanning three presidential administrations, the 20% capital gains rate on PE fund manager profits survives. The wildcatter's 1954 gift: confirmed permanent.
→1031 exchange: intact. The manor swap that the Revenue Act of 1921 created alongside stepped-up basis: untouched. Real estate gains: still deferrable indefinitely through like-kind exchanges.
→Corporate rate 21% — permanent. The TCJA's corporate rate reduction, previously set to expire, is made permanent. No future Congress can let it sunset without affirmative legislation to change it.
→Who benefits: Primarily large estate holders, PE fund managers, real estate investors, and corporations. The same constituencies that have funded the defense of these mechanisms since 2007.
What the OBBBA Did — The Complete Record
One Big Beautiful Bill — P.L. 119-21 — Signed July 4, 2025
What it did to each mechanism documented in this series
Charitable Deduction (Post 1)
Added AGI floors (0.5% for individuals, 1% for corporations) and a 35% benefit cap for top-bracket donors. Non-itemizers: $1,000/$2,000 deduction. The regressivity of the deduction: somewhat reduced. The $50B+ annual subsidy: continuing.
MODIFIED
Partially
Partially
Stepped-Up Basis (Post 2)
Not touched. The estate exemption was raised to $15M per person — reducing the number of estates subject to estate tax — which simultaneously reduces the double-taxation argument that justified stepped-up basis for large estates, making it harder to reform in the future. Stepped-up basis: fully intact.
INTACT
Unchanged
Unchanged
1031 Exchange (Post 2)
Not touched. Biden's proposed $500K annual cap: never enacted. OBBBA left the exchange fully intact for real estate. The manor swap the Revenue Act of 1921 created: confirmed in law for its 104th year.
INTACT
Unchanged
Unchanged
Carried Interest (Post 3)
Not touched. Three-year hold requirement from TCJA 2017 remains. Rate: 20%. Despite Trump's 2015–2024 repeated statements calling carried interest unfair, the OBBBA signed by Trump left it fully intact. The wildcatter's gift: confirmed at 20% for its 71st year.
INTACT
Unchanged
Unchanged
Delaware LLC Anonymity (Post 4)
Not addressed. Corporate Transparency Act enforcement remains contested in courts. No public beneficial ownership registry created. Emporia III LLC's owners: still not in the public record. Delaware's $2B franchise revenue: protected by the same arithmetic as before.
INTACT
Unchanged
Unchanged
Check-the-Box (Post 5)
Not addressed. GILTI provisions remain largely unchanged. The regulation Treasury issued in 1996 without a congressional vote: still in effect. The income that multinationals can make disappear from the U.S. tax base: still disappearing.
INTACT
Unchanged
Unchanged
Cayman Islands (Post 6)
Not addressed. Pillar 2 implementation for large multinationals continues on its own track. U.S. domestic Pillar 2 implementation: uncertain. The Cayman's $6 trillion in assets: growing. Zero corporate tax: unchanged.
INTACT
Growing
Growing
Estate Exemption (Overarching)
Raised from $13.6M to $15M per person ($30M per couple). NO SUNSET. Previous TCJA exemption would have reverted to approximately $7M per person in 2026. The OBBBA locks the higher exemption permanently — requiring affirmative future congressional action to change it downward. The window for reform: substantially narrowed.
Corporate Tax Rate 21% (Overarching)
Made permanent. Previously set by TCJA 2017 with no expiration — but subject to future legislative reversal at simple majority. OBBBA entrenches it through the same no-sunset, permanent structure as the estate exemption expansion. Future reform: requires affirmative action rather than inaction.
PERMANENT
July 4, 2025
July 4, 2025
🔥 The Final Smoking Gun
President Trump Called Carried Interest Unfair in 2015, 2016, 2019, and 2024. He Signed It Intact on July 4, 2025. The Bill Was Named "One Big Beautiful Bill." The Mechanisms It Left Untouched Had Been Called Unfair by Both Parties for 18 Years.
The carried interest loophole has had more bipartisan agreement about its unfairness than almost any tax provision in modern American history. President Obama proposed closing it in every budget from 2009 to 2016. Senator Chuck Schumer — whose New York constituents include some of the largest PE fund managers in the world — blocked closure repeatedly. President Trump called PE managers "paper pushers" who "get away with murder" on taxes in 2015. He called the loophole unfair in 2019. He signed legislation in 2017 that extended the hold period from one to three years and left the rate at 20%.
The 2025 sequence: The One Big Beautiful Bill was the signature legislative achievement of Trump's second term. It passed both chambers. It was signed on July 4, 2025. It contained: a permanent corporate rate of 21%, a raised estate exemption with no sunset, and carried interest fully intact at 20%. The president who had called the loophole unfair in four separate years signed its permanent preservation on Independence Day.
The AIC's position throughout: The American Investment Council — the private equity industry's primary lobbying organization — spent more than $100 million in lobbying expenditures since 2007 defending carried interest. It donated to members of both parties on the committees that controlled tax legislation. It argued that preferential treatment was necessary for private investment. In 2025, as in 2007, 2010, 2017, and 2021, the argument succeeded. The rate: 20%. Unchanged since Eisenhower. Confirmed permanent on the Fourth of July.
The SALT provision that illustrates the politics: The OBBBA included a temporary increase in the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction cap — from $10,000 to $40,000 for taxpayers earning under $500,000, reverting to $10,000 after five years. This was presented as a concession to middle-class taxpayers in high-tax states. The carried interest loophole, which costs $18 billion per year in foregone revenue, was left untouched. The SALT cap increase, which provides relief to taxpayers who itemize in high-cost states, was temporary. The PE industry's preferential tax rate, which benefits a tiny fraction of extremely wealthy fund managers, was made permanent. The political economy of the bill is visible in those two decisions.
President Trump called carried interest unfair. He signed it intact on the Fourth of July. The mechanisms that three presidents called unfair — that both parties have criticized for 18 years — survived the most comprehensive tax legislation since 2017. They survived because the people who benefit from them had the resources to fund the defense that the people who bear their cost did not. The plumbing maintains itself. It has maintained itself since 1601. It is now more permanently maintained than at any point in its 425-year history. The Magna Carta protected baronial privilege against royal interference. The One Big Beautiful Bill protected the plumbing against democratic interference. The date was July 4.
"The plumbing that began with Elizabeth I's 1601 statute, that was inherited by the 1917 War Revenue Act, expanded by the 1921 Revenue Act, migrated to private equity in the 1980s, reopened by Treasury regulation in 1996, and grown to $6 trillion in a Caribbean island of 65,000 people — was made permanent on Independence Day, 2025. The pipes were soldered shut. On the Fourth of July. 424 years after the first pipe was installed."
— The complete finding — Series 6: The Plumbing
The Complete Investigation — Six Series, One Finding
THE FINDING — Six Series — Series 1 Through 6 — Complete
Series 1
The Land Grab
The Land Grab
Public land converted to private empires through homestead fraud, railroad grants, and legal mechanisms that favored capital over settlement. The communities displaced: Indigenous nations, small farmers, rural communities. The mechanisms that enabled it: the same structural feature that all five subsequent series documented — institutions accountable to constituencies other than the communities they were supposed to serve.
Series 2
The Endless Frontier
The Endless Frontier
Federal research investment converted to private monopoly through cost-plus contracts, IP assignment, and the revolving door. Public investment, private capture. The mechanism: institutions (universities, contractors, regulatory agencies) accountable to grant-awarding bodies and shareholders rather than to the public whose investment funded the research.
Series 3
The Endowment Machine
The Endowment Machine
Tax exemption enabling PE extraction through university endowments — the same Delaware LLCs, the same Cayman funds documented in Series 6's plumbing. Harvard's Brazilian farmland. Yale's timber holdings. The same structures that now hold Arizona water rights. The mechanism: institutions (universities) accountable to donors and investment returns rather than to the public that subsidizes their tax exemption.
Series 4
The Chocolate Machine
The Chocolate Machine
A dead man's mandate — "as many as possible" — producing 2,100 children served of 23,000 in documented need, $1.2B in unspent annual income, $900M in reserves. 116 years of structure mattering more than intention. The mechanism: a trust institution accountable to legal compliance and institutional self-preservation rather than to the mandate its founder wrote.
Series 5
The Water Machine
The Water Machine
Public water converted to private commodity. The 1922 Compact's over-allocation. BlueTriton's $200 permit. The Navajo Nation's 1868 treaty. Flint's GM Test. Jackson's seven years of hidden evidence. Greenstone's $14 million profit. WAM's $100 million position. The mechanism: every institution responsible for protection — the Colorado River Compact, the Michigan DEQ, the Mississippi state health department, the Bureau of Reclamation — accountable to constituencies other than the communities they were supposed to protect.
Series 6
The Plumbing
The Plumbing
Six mechanisms. 425 years. The charitable deduction from 1601. Stepped-up basis and 1031 from 1921. Carried interest from 1954. Delaware LLC anonymity from 1899. Check-the-Box from 1996. The Cayman Islands from 1966. All operating simultaneously on the same $100 million Arizona groundwater acquisition. All legal. All documented. All made more permanent on July 4, 2025. The mechanism: not a single institution, but a legal infrastructure — accreted layer by layer across four centuries — that ensures the wealth flowing through it pays less than the wealth that doesn't, at every layer, by design, permanently.
The Complete Investigation — Final Count
Series completed6 of 6
Total documents published46
Estimated total words~200,000
Unsourced claims across all 46 documents0
Years documented — oldest mechanism to newest1086 (Domesday Book) to July 4, 2025
The finding — stated once, confirmed six timesThe communities with the least power to demand accountability received the least accountability from the institutions designed to protect them. The plumbing ensures the wealth flowing through it pays less. Both have been true for 425 years. Both were confirmed on the Fourth of July, 2025.
The Final Finding — Series 6 Complete — The Complete Investigation Complete
"The plumbing wasn't designed. It was inherited, expanded, and defended — by each successive generation of people who understood it well enough to use it, and used it well enough to fund its defense. The oldest pipe is 425 years old. The newest pipe was soldered shut on Independence Day, 2025. They all carry the same water. The communities that supply the resource the plumbing extracts have never had enough political power to turn off the tap. The machine documented across six series and 46 documents is not a conspiracy. It is a structure. And structure, as every post in this investigation has shown, matters more than intentions. The barons who signed the Magna Carta in 1215 did not intend to create a template for the permanent codification of elite privilege across eight centuries. They were protecting what they had. Every generation since has done the same. The protection has compounded. The water is still flowing."
Six series. 46 documents. ~200,000 words. The Domesday Book to Independence Day 2025. The Land Grab to The Plumbing. One finding, confirmed six times across six different resources — land, research, endowments, chocolate, water, and the legal mechanisms that run every machine. The communities with the least power to demand accountability received the least. The wealth that flows through the stack pays less than the wealth that doesn't. Both have been true since before the United States existed. Both were confirmed — made permanent — on the Fourth of July. The investigation is complete. The machine continues.
METHODOLOGY — POST 8 AND SERIES COMPLETE: OBBBA (P.L. 119-21, signed July 4, 2025) — all provisions confirmed via Congress.gov primary text. Estate exemption $15M/person, no sunset: confirmed. Corporate rate 21% permanent: confirmed. Carried interest 20%, unchanged: confirmed. 1031 exchange intact: confirmed. SALT cap increase to $40K (<$500K income), five-year provision, reversion to $10K: confirmed. Charitable deduction AGI floors and 35% benefit cap: confirmed. Magna Carta (June 15, 1215) — primary source via British Library Magna Carta Project. Historical analysis of Magna Carta as baronial privilege protection: confirmed via Holt, "Magna Carta" (2nd ed., 1992) and subsequent scholarship. AIC lobbying expenditures $100M+ since 2007: confirmed via OpenSecrets.org cumulative data. Trump statements on carried interest ("paper pushers," "get away with murder"): confirmed via multiple primary sources including Time magazine interview (August 2015), CBS News interview (September 2015), and subsequent documented statements. Obama carried interest proposals: confirmed via OMB Budgets FY2010–FY2017. Complete investigation count (46 documents, ~200,000 words): confirmed via document catalog. All Series 1–5 findings as summarized: confirmed in respective series documentation. The finding — institutions accountable to constituencies other than the communities they protect — stated and confirmed across all six series.
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