Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
Gimmie a few specifics so that I can attack THEM and try to discredit the IDEA of tax reduction.
BAD trump. Bad bad bad.
Truth is, we have a crazily complex tax structure that should be extirpated root and branch.
AND IRS, AND EPA, AND “Education”..................etc.
I doubt that Trump is unaware of any shred of this.
But Trump knows how to simplify for the average listener, as well as to find a bit of solace for those, like some on FR, who can’t understand why corporate income tax reduction is anything but a sop to the rich.
Trump’s tax plan in his 2011 book has a maximum rate of 15%. So when it is enacted the hedge fund guys will pay the same as everyone else, but they won’t get a tax increase.
As conservative as I am on most issues, I am somewhat agnostic on this one. Carried interest is an outsized share of profit (disproportionately larger than the manager’s invested capital) in consideration for managing the fund. That sounds like salary — profit for work. It also takes the character of capital gain income if the underlying profit is capital gain in nature, so that does sound like people are getting capital gain treatment — reduced taxes — on their salary. The counter-argument is that this is profit, not salary, and is put at risk. There is no guaranty that the manager will earn it, and its subordinated to others getting their money back plus a return, so in that sense its not salary. But there are ways to mitigate that risk.
I think what the carried interest debate shows is that when you have an incredibly complex tax code, an army of lawyers can get you a better tax result.