DeBoer: Carried Interest Tax a Big Issue

"What we have now is a situation where the House bill on tax extendersneeds to be conferenced but the revenue sources in the Senate bill aregone," he tells GlobeSt.com. "The temptation to adopt the House provisions on carriedinterest will be significant."

To fully understand the stakes some background is in order, startingwith the tax characterization of carried interest itself.Carried interest is the percentage of a fund, joint venture orlimited partnership's profits that a general partner takes ascompensation. Many real estate partnerships are structured around thisconcept, with developers taking much of their compensation this way in lieu of a salary. These proceeds are taxed at the capital gains tax rate of 15%. Changing that characterization to ordinary income would essentially triple the tax rate.Even with a working capital market system and robust commercial real estate environment, the carried interest proposal has been viewed as a serious threat tofunding real estate. A Real Estate Roundtable study in 2007 found thatthe cost of the proposal to the industry could reach as much as $20billion.

The push to change the characterization usually happens asCongress works to extend about a dozen or so tax proposals each year.Bundled together, these disparate taxes--such as the 15-yeardepreciation for leasehold improvements--are called the Extenderspackage.

Last year ended without Congress passing this Extenders package. However, theHouse passed its version and then used it as a funding source. The Senate also passed its version, but without the carried interestproposal. Instead, it paid for the Extenders package with othersources. Unfortunately, those sources are being used to finance thehealth insurance overhaul, DeBoer said. Thus, the crucial 30- to 45-day period. "This is when we expect the Extender bills to be conferenced and resolved in some way."