Can I take my vote back from yesterday’s "do you approve of Congress" vote?
If the Democrats can get Bush to veto this piece of legislation (via Yahoo), they'll have my confidence once again:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a bill on Friday that would more than double taxes on the pay of managers of private equity funds, hedge funds and other investment partnerships.
Throwing down a challenge to some of the nation's savviest and richest financiers, the bill would set a higher tax rate for "carried interest," the 20-percent cut of profits beyond targeted returns typically kept by senior managers of private equity firms and other firms on major transactions.
So what does all this mean? Turns out these Private Equity Firms (a la Blackstone and the Carlye Group) don't report their income as income, but as capital gains. Income is taxed at 35%, capital gains is taxed at 15%