"You could say there was a little justice in the world," said hedge fund billionaire David Tepper. Yes, Mr. Tepper, very little.
But that could change. According to a piece in the Times today, "Trump Lands a Blow Against Carried Interest Tax Loophole" (my emphasis):
...the people who benefit are among the richest in the country. Even
though most hedge funds haven’t had a very good year, last year the top
25 hedge fund managers earned a combined $11.62 billion, according to Institutional Investor, or an average of $467 million each. The latest data from the Internal Revenue Service
for the top 400 earners, a list studded with hedge fund and private
equity managers, show that in 2012 they paid the second-lowest average
federal tax rate since the data has been collected, a mere 16.7 percent,
in large part because much of their income (an average of 57 percent)
is taxed at the lower capital gains rate.
That’s
one reason the loophole has survived as long as it has. “The group that
benefits may be small, but they’re rich and they give a lot of money”
to politicians, said Daniel Shaviro, a specialist in tax policy and law
professor at New York University School of Law. “To everyone else it can
seem a vague talking point. It’s classic interest group politics.”
As Donald Trump correctly observed, “The hedge fund guys are getting away with murder.”
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