UPDATED BELOW
For all of Percy's posts on carried interest, click here.

The NY Times refers to the current tax treatment of carried interest as a "little known tax break" in an article today reporting that the tax-writing committees of Congress may soon propose legislation that would change that treatment of carry to the detriment of alternative asset managers.  There is nothing "little known" about the tax treatment of a profits interest in a partnership except perhaps to business reporters of the New York Times, and there is nothing tax breaky or loopholey about the current treatment.  In fact, if there is a change it will be a special tax penalty for investment advisory firms.  I've explained this at the bottom of my enemies list (which is already woefully outdated given the number of people who have recently jumped on the private equity haters bandwagon) and here.

Here's Professor Dale Oesterle, who I welcome to my friends list (also in need of updating):

Partnerships in everything from local laundries to complex multi-national ventures have long had two types of investors, Moneybags (a passive investor who puts up the cash for a portion of the profits) and Operator (who invests labor and no cash and takes no salary but takes a portion of the profits).  Both Moneybags and Operator are taxed the same on the profits; if the profits are ordinary income both pay income tax — if the profits are capital gains (long or short), both pay capital gains tax.  Fleischer would have the partners taxed differently on capital investments.  Operator would pay income tax and Moneybags would pay a capital gains tax. There is no theory to support this: Operator is investing foregone salary but the returns are not in any sense salary, they are speculative returns based on an investment of the foregone salary.

UPDATE:  Further to my point, read this post from the Carried Interest Tax Blog and this post from PE Hub.