The Private-Equity Tax Rate

Robert Reich reports:

Way back in the 1970s, newly-minted MBAs with dollar-signs in their eyes wanted to be CEOs. Then, in the 1980s, they wanted to go into investment banking, because the money was even better there. In the 1990s, they went into high-tech venture capital and dot coms. Now it’s private equity. Becoming partner in a private equity firm is also the new dream of every CEO in America.

That's because the average big-company CEO has to make do with a measly $7 million a year, taxed at 35 percent. But private equity partners are raking in hundreds of millions a year, taxed at 15 percent -- less than the tax rate paid by middle-class Americans.

There's no such thing as a fair tax.