Carried Interest Loophole Bill

January 31, 2017

Facing a $1.5B deficit and an upcoming budget expected to be laden with additional cuts to services and jobs, I joined lawmakers and advocates today to introduce Proposed Bill 6973. This bill would close the “carried interest” tax loophole and would generate more than $520M. Similar bills are planned or have been introduced this year in New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island as part of a regionally coordinated effort between lawmakers. Presently, the tax loophole allows a small, extremely wealthy group of hedge fund and private equity managers to pay much lower taxes for the fruit of their labor than everyone else.

The bill, which has 35 legislative co-sponsors, has the strong support of economic and tax justice advocates the Working Families Organization, Patriotic Millionaires, Hedge Clippers, Make the Road CT, and Connecticut Voices for Children, a fiscal policy organization that advocates for Connecticut’s families.

We all know that this year is going to be an uphill battle in the way of balancing our state's budget as we face a growing deficit of $1.5B plus. What we should also know is that we cannot rely on cuts alone. We must create revenue streams for the state that will foster a budget based on tax parity.