Carlyle Group, Beneficiary of Carried Interest Loophole, Embarrassed by Protest
Photograph from New York Times
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) staged a protest Wednesday in front of the office of the Carlyle Group, the private equity firm that buys up nursing home management operators, defense companies and other businesses that get billions of dollars from the federal government. The partners at Carlyle are able to earn hundreds of millions of taxpayer-provided dollars while paying a lower tax rate than middle-income Americans thanks to the carried interest loophole.
The demonstration included people pushing wheelbarrows full of bags of "cash" from the IRS, which is located across the street, to a "fat cat" sitting on the front steps of Carlyle's office.
In light of this sort of press, it's really no wonder that private equity lobbyists are saying that the controversy over their tax breaks is far from over.
