Gretchen Morgenson writes in this week’s New York Times Sunday Business section:

There is a lot about this problem of income inequality — and about the economy over all — that Mr. Obama cannot control. Still, there is something he could do right now to help narrow the widening gulf between rich and poor. In one deft move, Mr. Obama could instruct officials at his Treasury Department to close the so-called carried interest tax loophole that allows managers of private equity and hedge funds to pay a substantially lower federal tax rate on much of their income.

No one can predict with complete confidence whether a court would uphold as-yet-unwritten Treasury regulations addressing carried interest, but I agree with Morgenson (and with the tax experts she cites) that such regulations — if written carefully and finalized after notice and comment — quite likely would pass judicial muster. What Morgenson doesn’t mention, though, is that when it comes to tax reform measures that the Obama administration could implement on its own, carried interest is just the tip of the iceberg. President Obama might not be able to make much of a dent in income inequality without legislative action, but he could raise billions of dollars in revenue while addressing some of the most objectionable tax avoidance strategies employed by U.S. corporations and high-net-worth individuals.

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