Thursday on Fox Business Network’s “The Intelligence Report,” host Trish Regan and commentator Ben Stein criticized the Republican tax bill signed by President Donald Trump for keeping the carried interest loophole.
Regan said, “Yeah, I mean, this is what Americans rebelled against, right? I think, in part, this election, and the reason why they sent Donald Trump there. I found it very refreshing on the campaign trail when he kept saying he wanted to close this carried interest loophole, but of course, there was absolutely no will. Ben, I will tell you, I was shocked when I looked at both the House and Senate plans, and I thought not any of them bothered to deal with this. Then they came up with some little fix down the road saying ‘Well, if you hold your investment for three years.’ Well Ben, you and I both know, private equity investors they always hold for at least three years.”
Stein said, “Yeah, they hold them for very long time. And by the way, that whole private equity thing is very much of a scam because what they do is trade these companies back and forth among themselves. They don’t really do much to turn them around, change them around, it is just a way of playing musical chairs. Only there are enough chairs, and they wind up all making a great, great deal of money. Unfortunately, some of the people we admire most in the country have a lot to do with that.”
He added, “It is insane what you can buy in politics in terms of the tax code. The idea people don’t understand it. Therefore we can do it, that is a disgraceful excuse.”
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