Private equity managers are likely to pay more taxes on carried interest in 2012 to help pay for Republican-initiated spending cuts.
President Barack Obama’s 2012 proposal directs the US Congress to require executives of private equity firms to pay ordinary income tax rates as high as 35 percent (39.6 percent after 2012) on the profits they receive as compensation. Carried interest currently qualifies for lower capital gains tax rates of 15 percent (20 percent after 2012).
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President Barack |
Congress came close to raising the carried interest tax rate last year, but it ultimately stalled in the Senate.
The proposal appears to be a scaled-back version the Senate considered last year, as the president’s previous budget’s proposal on carried interest would have raised $24 billion in tax revenues over 10 years and this one would generate $14.8 billion over the same period.
In December, US Senator Max Baucus, a Democrat, dropped a provision in the contentious tax cut bill that would have more than doubled taxes on carried interest. The Senate bill would have prevented general partners from paying taxes entirely at the capital gains rate on carried interest. Under certain rules, up to 75 percent of carry could have been treated as ordinary income beginning this year.