Cooperman: $400K Income Targeted By Democrats Doesn’t Make One ‘Rich’ — Instead, “Deal With The Loopholes”

Billionaire investor and Elizabeth Warren foe Leon Cooperman has news for the Biden administration: earning $400,000 per year doesn’t make one ‘rich’ – the income level at which Democrats plan to start aggressively raising taxes.

“I believe rich people should pay more in taxes,” the 78-year-old Cooperman told Bloomberg Television Thursday morning. “The question we have to deal with as nation is coalesced around the question: What should the maximum tax rate be on wealthy people?”

“I believe rich people should pay more in taxes. The question we have to deal with as a nation is… ‘What should the maximum tax rate be on wealthy people?’… This talk about wealth taxes, it’s all baloney,” says Omega Family Office’s Leon Cooperman https://t.co/hUordfWDMr pic.twitter.com/2djY7jptOp

— BSurveillance (@bsurveillance) November 11, 2021

“We don’t need new forms of taxation — deal with the loopholes,” he added, pointing to rules such as the carried interest exemption which allows some private equity managers and venture capitalists avoid higher tax rates on one of their primary forms of compensation.

“I think it’s becoming a little bit clearer that the general populace is not in line with the progressives,” Cooperman added.

“Is $400,000 in 2022 ‘rich’?” @tomkeene asks billionaire Leon Cooperman.

“I don’t think so,” the hedge fund manager replies.

“I believe rich people should pay more in taxes,” he says later. But “all this talk about wealth taxes is baloney.” pic.twitter.com/CThPEvH6Eq

— David Gura (@davidgura) November 11, 2021

Cooperman, who closed his money management business in 2018 and converted Omega Advisors into a family office – cashing investors out at a record high after annualized returns of 12.4%.

He’s spent the last year warning that when the market does finally go down, it’s going to ‘make your head spin.’