When is $600 Million in Salary Not Enough?
September 6, 2007
Testimony Counters Private-Equity Tax Claims
By STEPHEN LABATON and JENNY ANDERSON
WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 — Pension fund and tax specialists told Congress today that a proposal to more than double the tax rate of executives at private equity firms and hedge funds, which invest money from pension funds, would have a negligible effect on the returns provided to pensioners.
The specialists said that although the pension funds had invested billions of dollars in hedge funds and equity funds, those investments are a small part of their overall assets, less than 10 percent, according to recent studies. As a result, they said, any increase in taxes on the managers of the hedge funds and equity funds would do little damage to pension funds.
Today’s testimony was significant because critics of the proposals have maintained that fund managers would pass on any tax increase to investors, thus reducing the returns of pension funds that millions of middle-income Americans rely upon for t…