NEW: “Ashley Hinson Fought to Save Private Equity’s Favorite Loophole”
Mother Jones: “Hinson, Whose Campaign Did Not Respond to a Request for Comment, Has Proved to be a Reliable Vote for Corporate Tax Breaks and Deregulation in Washington”
Mother Jones: “All Told, Hinson Raised More Than $1 Million From Individuals and PACs Tied to the Securities and Investment Industry”
DES MOINES – A new report from Mother Jones dove into Ashley Hinson’s corrupt record and found she has been more focused on “saving private equity’s favorite tax break” than fighting to lower costs for Iowans.
According to the report, Hinson fought to keep in place the carried interest loophole, which allows private equity groups and their multimillionaire managers to “save billions of dollars each year by paying a markedly lower tax on much of their income than many less-affluent Americans.” Tax experts have called the loophole a “terrible policy,” something “on which tax professors are most strongly agreed.”
Over the years “she has proved to be a reliable vote for corporate tax breaks and deregulation in Washington,” including backing massive cuts to financial and consumer watchdog groups that help Iowans protect their hard-earned dollars. It comes as she’s relied heavily on campaign donations from the finance industry to power her political campaigns, raising “more than $1 million” from the securities and investment industry.
Missed the report? See below for more key highlights:
Mother Jones: Ashley fought to save private equity’s favorite loophole
- On her campaign website, Rep. Ashley Hinson, the Republican nominee in Iowa’s toss-up US Senate race, says she’s “laser focused on lowering taxes on working families.” In Washington, she’s tackled a different project: Saving private equity’s favorite tax break.
- The carried interest loophole, which allows private investment managers to save billions of dollars each year by paying a markedly lower tax on much of their income than many less-affluent Americans, is one of the few things that Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Donald Trump all agree on. […] Trump once said private equity executives were “getting away with murder.”
- And Hinson joined a few dozen other Republican members of Congress in asking Smith to keep the carried-interest provision as it is.
- “We recognize that the issue of carried interest has been heavily politicized and frequently mislabeled as a loophole,” Hinson and her colleagues wrote in a letter that April. But they insisted that “carried interest is not a loophole but rather a critical, longstanding investment management tool beneficial to our nation’s economy.”
- “[…] Congress has considered it and decided to leave this terrible policy on the books so many times. At this point, it’s intentional malfeasance on the part of Congress.”
- Tax professors are not as divided on the issue as members of Congress. Choi once surveyed 157 of his colleagues and found that all but 10 believed carried-interest should be taxed as income. It is “the single policy on which tax professors are most strongly agreed,” he says.
- Hinson, whose campaign did not respond to a request for comment, has proven to be a reliable vote for corporate tax breaks and deregulation in Washington. She has backed major cuts to the Securities and Exchange Commission—Wall Street’s top watchdog—and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which protects Americans from scams and dodgy financial instruments.
- […] Hinson is getting major support from Fight On Iowa, a hybrid super-PAC that’s entered into a joint fundraising agreement with the candidate’s campaign committee; it’s a way for candidates to rake in large donations far in excess of what a contributor can gave to a campaign committee. So far, the PAC has raised $1.77 million. A full $1.5 million of that has come from one donor: Ken Griffin, the New York- and Florida-based hedge fund billionaire who has given generously to conservative causes.
- Hinson is just one of many candidates he’s supporting. But the money pouring into her race from one donor—and one industry—represents a marked contrast with her self-styled image as a fighter against “special interests.”
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