Real Estate Roundtable spent $930K lobbying in 2Q

WASHINGTON

The Real Estate Roundtable, which represents commercial property owners, spent $930,000 in the second quarter lobbying federal officials on issues including a proposal to raise taxes on real estate partnerships.

The group has been critical of legislation to hike those taxes. It argues the change would hinder the economic recovery.

Partnerships' shares of profits, called carried interest, are taxed as capital gains, with a top rate of 15 percent. Lawmakers want to tax some of those profits at higher rates. Legislation to do so passed the House in May but has stalled in the Senate.

The group also lobbied on the Federal Reserve's lending program for the commercial real estate industry and on banking industry regulation, accounting issues, terrorism insurance, energy efficiency and environmental issues, according to a July 19 quarterly filing with the House clerk's office.

The group's second-quarter lobbying was up from the $780,000 it spent in the same quarter a year earlier, and was also up from $700,000 spent in the first quarter of 2010.