Wall Street lobbying firms receiving millions to help block efforts to raise tax rate to 35%

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/20/AR2007082001761.html

Wall Street Paying High Price to Keep Cash

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Tuesday, August 21, 2007; Page A13


The nascent fight over whether to raise taxes on Wall Street hot shots has become one of the year's biggest lobbying bonanzas.

In order to defeat what amounts to two pieces of tax legislation, those new high rollers of finance -- private equity firms and hedge funds -- have been flooding Washington with money. Even though legislation was introduced just this spring, the buyout firms have already distributed at least $5.5 million in lobbying fees, quadruple what they spent in all of 2006, according to Bloomberg News.

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But the law firm's situation was quite different from Ogilvy's. Bingham McCutchen was a principal player in one of the most complex multiyear negotiations ever undertaken in Washington involving asbestos litigation and legislation. Ogilvy Government Relations, by contrast, is fighting alongside others to block a much more straightforward effort to increase the tax rate paid by private equity managers to the 35 percent range from the current 15 percent.

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Ogilvy's effort is headed by Wayne L. Berman, a prominent Republican fundraiser and the husband of Lea Berman, a former White House social secretary under President Bush. But he and his team are not alone in the battle.

Private equity firms and hedge funds have hired a who's who of Washington lobbyists. They include Kenneth B. Mehlman, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee who is now with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. Akin Gump received $120,000 in the year's first half from Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, a prominent buyout firm, and also got $100,000 during the same period from the Private Equity Council, the industry's trade group, reports show.