His longtime lieutenant, Gary Cohn, was the face of Wall Street’s support for the tax overhaul as he helped guide it after leaving Goldman Sachs to join Trump’s White House. The law slashed corporate rates to 21% from 35%. That has since helped the nation’s biggest banks churn out record profits and given a boost to rich Americans despite Trump’s promise that they “will not be gaining at all.” Cohn declined to comment.
Critics of the tax cuts have long complained that companies spent the extra cash buying back their own shares to boost stock prices, rather than plowing the money into developing their businesses and adding jobs. Even Trump has complained about how the money was put to work.
Some wealthy Americans who are anticipating higher taxes are in a position to do something about it. Billionaire J.B. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois and heir to the Hyatt fortune, is targeting the rich in his push to raise more revenue for his cash-strapped state. Goldman Sachs veteran Phil Murphy, now the governor of New Jersey and another Democrat, is trying to push a millionaire’s tax, selling it as a matter of fairness.
Not everyone on Wall Street would be happy with paying more. One top executive at a global asset-management firm said he was so disturbed by a plan floating around Albany to boost taxes on the richest New Yorkers that he called an influential state senator to complain.
Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates LP, predicted in 2017 that the Trump tax cuts would only provide a “short-term minor boost” to the economy. Now he thinks they will have to be rolled back to help pay for the response to the pandemic. His statements this week were described by a person who heard the remarks. A spokesman for Bridgewater declined to comment.
Cooperman, the hedge fund manager, has feuded with Senator Elizabeth Warren over her plans to introduce a wealth tax on billionaires, even getting choked up on television as he discussed the debate on the fairness of her proposal. He says he’s in favor of the rich shouldering a bigger burden -- but only to a point.
A proposal from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York to tax the richest Americans at 70% “makes no sense,” he said. “It becomes a question of morality.”
--With assistance from Katherine Burton and Heather Perlberg.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.