Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) released an important call to action along with a report this afternoon about carried interest, the loophole that allows multimillionaire investment fund managers to subject their income to lower tax rates than the average citizen. The "extenders" tax package, which is currently before the Senate, includes a carried interest loophole-closer, but it seems that senators are listening to the fund managers' well-heeled lobbyists and their ridiculous claims against this commonsense policy change.

CTJ is urging everyone to call their senators and tell them that the "extenders" bill – which includes badly needed unemployment insurance and COBRA health benefits, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) jobs and emergency funding, and Medicaid funding for states – must be passed.

To do so, call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask the operator to connect you to the senators from your state.

Additionally, CTJ released a report debunking the outrageous arguments that lobbyists, and unfortunately even some senators, are making in defense of the carried interest loophole. To justify this canard of a subsidy, lobbyists are claiming that if Congress taxes carried interest as regular income, instead of the at the lower capital gains rate, they will hurt everyone from minorities and low-income neighborhoods to small business entrepreneurs and cancer patients.

Read the CTJ report to get the outlandish rationale behind these arguments, but, not surprisingly, they don't hold much water. Indeed, "The only question left," as CTJ puts it, "is why exactly senators and their staffs are willing to parrot these arguments" rather than act on "a bill to provide jobs and relief for struggling Americans during a difficult time." Senators holding up the "extenders" bill because of their objection to the carried interest loophole-closer need to answer that question for every single one of their constituents.

Image by Flickr user paida70 used under a Creative Commons license.