On ending the hedge fund "carried interest" loophole

[BernieforPres2016]

Hedge fund managers, many of whom make millions and even tens of millions annually, worked a loophole into the tax code called "carried interest" on which they pay a 15% maximum tax rate. This so called "carried interest" is the portion of their compensation that is for performance above a certain benchmark. In any other industry it would be called ordinary income.

Hillary mentioned during her NY Daily News interview that she said in 2007 that she was in favor of ending the carried interest loophole. I found out that she did advocate that, and so did candidate Obama. So why have we not heard President Obama push for that in the 7 plus years he's been in office, and is there any reason to think Hillary Clinton would make a serious effort to end it as President?

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/clinton-calls-for-end-to-carried-interest-tax-break/?_r=0

<Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday became the latest presidential candidate to announce her support for ending a tax treatment that has enabled some wealthy financiers to shave enormous amounts of money from their income tax bills.

In doing so, she is sure to get Wall Street’s attention. Chiefs of some of the biggest private equity firms, including Blackstone Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, have traveled to Washington in recent months in an effort to persuade lawmakers not to support legislation that would raise taxes for them and their firms.

Senator Clinton, speaking at a rally in New Hampshire, called for ending a “glaring inequity” that allows investment managers in certain partnerships to take large amounts of their compensation in the form of performance fees or “carried interest,” which is taxed at the 15 percent capital gains rate rather than at income tax rates as high as 35 percent.>

<Some of Ms. Clinton’s campaign donors are prominent figures from the private equity world, including Glenn Hutchins of Silver Lake Partners and Steven Rattner of Quadrangle.

Two other Democratic presidential hopefuls, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, have also called for taxing carried interest at regular income tax rates.>

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. She will need a Congress that will write and pass that legislation.