Clinton/Obama/Edwards back increase in taxes on managers of private equity/hedge funds

[papau]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aZ.WSs35i0.0&refer=politics (paraphrased and edited down to a minimum size)

Clinton is backing efforts to boost taxes for managers of private-equity firms and hedge funds, saying that profits that managers receive for investment services should be taxed as ordinary income and not as capital-gains (Ordinary income is taxed at rates as high as 35 percent and the capital gains rate is as low as 15 percent). Cinton did not say what specific pieces of legislation she is backing.

Edwards (supporting a measure backed by such Democrats as House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel of New York) also favors taxing the investment managers' income, known as carried interest, at the higher rates.

Illinois Senator Obama say he will soon co-sponsor legislation introduced by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, and the panel's ranking Republican, Charles Grassley of Iowa that will classify publicly traded hedge funds and private-equity funds, such as Blackstone Group LP, as corporations, subjecting them to higher taxes.


Meanwhile on the GOP side Rudy Giuliani has said he opposes raising the managers' taxes.