WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- A plan to hike the tax rate on the massive earnings of U.S. private-equity firms likely will be delayed by the U.S. Congress until after 2008.
The plan won't make it through the U.S. Senate this year and lawmakers are reluctant to push a tax hike during an election year, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid, D-Nev., has told private-equity firms the Senate schedule is too crowded to consider the bill by year's end, the Post reported.
The equity firms, also known as buyout firms, spent millions opposing the tax hike with a huge lobbying blitz. The firms' deals have created a class of superwealthy investors who have taken some of the United States' largest companies private, the Post reported.
Some lawmakers saw the tax increase as a way to pay for the repeal of the alternative minimum tax, which threatens to hike the taxes of 23 million households this year.
