Monday, March 14, 2016

PHILANTHROPY DOESN’T EQUAL TAX FAIRNESS

“RECENTLY, I SPOKE with Morris Pearl, who in 2014 retired as a managing director
at BlackRock, the asset-management firm, to become chairman of the Patriotic Millionaires,
a
group of wealthy advocates for higher taxes on the rich, which was organized in 2010.
(The membership now numbers about two hundred and includes Norman Lear, the TV producer,
an
d Leo Hindery,]r., a private-equity executive who has for years supported closing the carried-
interest loophole.) I asked Pearl whether philanthropy mitigated the need for reform. ‘We need to make collective decisions by our elected representatives on how to spend our money’he said. ‘It's
not up to each individual person to decide how to spend the money."

On November 18th [2015], Pearl joined Sander Levin, now the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, at a press conference to renew the call for closing the carried-interest
loophole
. Levin said, There's more and more insistence in this country on fairness and a belief that this institution does not respond to the circumstances of the typical family and the typical worker.’ He told me, Philanthropic contributions don't answer the need for tax fairness. Under that theory, why not just lower the tax rate still more and the rich will have more money to give away?’"


Alec MacGillis, “The Billionaires’ Loophole,” New Yorker, March 14, 2016, pp: 64-73.
order:none windowtext 0in;padding:0in; background:white'>Alec MacGillis, “The Billionaires’ Loophole,” New Yorker, March 14, 2016, pp: 64-73.