Billionaire Leon Cooperman Says $400,000 Income Doesn’t Make You Rich

(Bloomberg) -- Billionaire investor Leon Cooperman said he doesn’t consider someone earning $400,000 a year rich after that figure was proposed by President Joe Biden and House Democrats in plans to raise taxes on wealthy households. 

“I believe rich people should pay more in taxes,” Cooperman said in an interview Thursday with Bloomberg Television. “The question we have to deal with as a nation is coalesced around the question: What should the maximum tax rate be on wealthy people?”

Cooperman, 78, called talk of wealth taxes “baloney.”

“We don’t need new forms of taxation -- deal with the loopholes,” he said, pointing to rules including those governing carried interest, which allow some private equity managers and venture capitalists to pay lower rates on one of their main forms of compensation.  

“I think it’s becoming a little bit clearer that the general populace is not in line with the progressives,” Cooperman said, citing the closely contested elections in New Jersey and Virginia earlier this month. 

Cooperman is worth $2.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, though he has said that number is too low, without elaborating. The billionaire stopped managing client money in 2018 and converted his Omega Advisors into a family office. Omega, which posted annualized returns of 12.4% since inception, cashed out investors at a record high.

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