...Romney has, in the past, (click here) explicitly called for keeping the tax benefit in place. But this election cycle, even when asked directly, the candidate has not clearly articulated a position.
Campaign staffers have added to confusion over the candidate's position, occasionally suggesting that Romney would, once elected, consider rolling back the tax break. At other times, the campaign has walked those suggestions back.
The tax treatment of carried interest, an obscure compensation method used primarily in high-stakes finance, has long been a hot topic in Washington and on Wall Street....
Carried interest sparks bipartisan tax debate (click here)
January 22, 2012 6:01 am ET
When millionaire GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney last week estimated his federal tax rate at 15%, he drew howls of criticism from both Republicans and Democrats, and put a controversial tax treatment for private-equity returns back on the front burner in Congress...
Below is a PDF from American Action Forum regarding Carried Interest. The American Action Forum is a right wing think tank (if there is actually such a thing) that wants to REFORM government. That always gets me, the Right Wing claims to be more patriot than any other citizen in the country, YET, they always want these board sweeping REFORMS of the USA government. This is the year 2012, the population in the USA is over 300 million and the idea government can be small when the country isn't is complete stupidity.
Executive Summary
Congress is considering proposals to increase the taxation of “carried interest” (click here) - an integral feature of the financial arrangements of partnerships. Taxing carried interest is not a matter of fairness or closing loopholes. Increasing taxes on carried interest would constitute a potentially large tax increase on partnerships – especially in finance, insurance, and real estate – both in dollar terms and relative to the income generation of the affected partners. The specter of these tax implications will spawn reactions ranging from legal restructuring to crowding out valuable real economic transactions that are not
sufficiently profitable to carry the additional burden. Perhaps most damaging, the higher taxes on carried interest will re-allocate managerial talent, as the entrepreneurially-inclined are deterred by these higher taxes and seek their outlets elsewhere in the economy. The proposed tax treatment is inconsistent with basic principles of tax policy...
In no definition or explanation or tax code will anyone see the word THEFT. That is what Carried Interest is and it should be criminalized. NOT Thrift, Theft!
