Trump Tax Policy Could Be Huge Gift To Hedge Fund And Private Equity Millionaires

The Trump administration unveiled a broad outline of its proposed tax overhaul Wednesday, and although the plan was short on details, it did include a measure that could be a huge boon for the richest Americans. A proposed 15 percent tax rate for corporations could also be applied to individuals — the hedge fund and private equity managers who candidate Donald Trump used to say were “getting away with murder.”

Treasury Secretary and former hedge-fund manager Steven Mnuchin and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, both former Goldman Sachs employees, explained the basics of the plan at a press conference Wednesday, while emphasizing that the details of what Cohn called “one of the biggest tax cuts in American history” would be worked out with the Republican-controlled House and Senate over the coming weeks.

The specifics that the two men did offer would represent a major overhaul to the tax system. The White House wants to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent and reduce the number of personal income tax brackets from seven to three, which would be subject to 35, 25 and 10 percent tax rates.

But one of the most significant changes would be a change in “pass-through” taxes. Income from pass-through entities, including partnership structures used by hedge funds and private equity firms as well as some small businesses and independent contractors, are currently subject to personal income tax rates. But under the Trump plan, that income could be taxed at the corporate rate, which could reduce the tax rate of some of the most affluent Americans from 39.6 percent to 15 percent.

“This special tax says if you have an ownership of an S-corp, partnership or presumably an LLC taxed as partnership, that business income is going to pass to you at a 15 percent rate, which is just astounding,” Nick Jovanovich, a partner with business law firm Berger Singerman, told International Business Times.

Mnuchin told reporters Wednesday the richest U.S. citizens wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the new rate but he offered no specifics. Tax experts told IBT the new rate would actually increase the size of what is known as the carried interest tax loophole, which allows hedge fund and private equity managers, some of the wealthiest people in the country, to treat their funds’ profits as capital gains, which are currently taxed at only 20 percent — already lower than the tax rate paid by middle class earners.

Joseph Rosenberg, a senior research associate at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center said that even during last year’s presidential campaign, “It was sort of ironic that [Trump] was targeting carried interest but wanted a 15 percent tax on business income.”

While the Trump administration said the lower pass-through tax rate would help partnerships of all types, Rosenberg noted that the 15 percent rate wouldn’t be that much different than the rates already enjoyed by many small businesses. Hedge funds and private equity funds would see a huge reduction, however.

“The majority of small businesses are not very profitable things. The majority of pass-through income, the majority of people who report self-employment income, are taxed at relatively low rates, usually at 10 to 15 percent rates,” Rosenberg told IBT. “But the majority of the dollars come from a very small fraction of people at the very top. It’s those folks who are going to benefit most from the rate reduction.”

According to a March analysis of pass-through income by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, individuals in the highest tax bracket make up just 6.3 percent of the people who receive income from partnerships and S Corporations. But they receive 73.5 percent of the total net income from partnerships and S Corporations — or $441 billion.