You Want Me to Pay Taxes? Get Out of Here!

The billionares on the hedge fund and private equity circuit are outraged. Are they going actually have to pay 35% taxes, as income taxes, or will they continue to get away with murder. By the way, the REITs Real Estate investment trusts, should also be taxed as income. Here some junk from the NY Times

Henry R. Kravis, the billionaire founder of the corporate buyout movement, has been involved in hectic lobbying on Capitol Hill, hoping to kill legislation that would raise his taxes and those of other investment fund executives.

The buyout titan met two weeks ago with Representative Sander M. Levin - a senior Democrat who is proposing to more than double the amount of tax that the industry now pays - and mustered his best arguments. Kravis said that firms like Kohlberg Kravis Roberts play a central role in the US economy, citing the example of how his firm had produced many jobs in Levin’s home state when it turned around a troubled electricity company in Michigan. He asserted that an increase in tax rates would harm American competitiveness abroad.

In recent weeks, lawmakers have had visits from industry leaders including Blackstone chief Stephen A. Schwartzman and David M. Rubenstein, a senior executive and co-founder of the Carlyle Group.