Something has changed this election season. The perennial hot button issue of carried interest, which offers sweetheart tax rates to wealthy private equity and hedge fund executives—and costs the U.S. Treasury billions of dollars—is getting a pass.
In prior years, lawmakers have used campaign season to seize on the carried interest loophole, pointing out how some PE execs have grown obscenely rich, and demanding a change to the tax rules. Even Donald Trump has made hay of the carried interest issue, claiming in 2016 that the “hedge fund guys are getting away with murder” and pledging to end the tax break.
