Require publicly traded financial partnerships to pay the corporate income tax

Tax promise goes by the wayside

Updated: Monday, December 28th, 2009 | By Angie Drobnic Holan

Yes, this promise is a little obscure. During the campaign, President Barack Obama promised to require financial partnerships to pay the same tax rates as corporations. Partnerships function a little differently than a traditional corporation -- partnerships have co-owners as opposed to stockholders, for example -- and they are treated differently under the tax code. This promise was one of several Obama made that would result in increasing taxes on the wealthy.

We have been able to find no evidence that any movement has been made on this promise. We checked with the experts at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, and they didn't find any proposals either. So we rate this promise Stalled.

Sources:

Legal Dictionary, Definition: Partnership

U.S. Treasury Department, " General Explanations of the Administration's Fiscal Year 2010 Proposals ," May 2009

E-mail interview with Rosanne Altshuler of the Tax Policy Center