(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. needs to cut corporate tax rates to keep businesses from moving abroad, even if that means raising rates for wealthy individuals and removing the carried interest tax break for investment managers, said JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM). Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon.
Dimon, who is chairman of the Business Roundtable in addition to running the largest U.S. bank, said he’s in favor of limiting the state and local tax deduction since it mostly favors the wealthy in high-spending states such as New York, where JPMorgan is based. Dimon, who spoke at an Economic Club of Chicago event, also said he wants to see negative tax rates for lower-income individuals.
“I don’t think the private equity guys should argue for carried interest, I don’t think the hedge fund guys should be arguing for deferrals, I don’t think I should argue for reducing my rate,” he said. “If you want to raise my rate, so be it.”
Dimon, 61, said he’d bet on a new president being elected in 2020, provided Democrats pick a candidate who’s moderate. The CEO said Donald Trump is right to take a tough stance on China, and that the previous administration held back U.S. banks’ ability to compete with Chinese lenders.
Dimon, who spoke for almost an hour, also brought up several gripes he’s previously aired. He said he regrets buying Bear Stearns Cos. because his firm was later fined for that bank’s actions, and the experience made him vow to never trust anyone from the government again. He said he’ll write a book about the lessons from the financial crisis, and name people that treated the bank unfairly.
Other topics he addressed:
- JPMorgan, which has announced investments in Detroit and Chicago, is considering New Orleans and Washington as the next targets of its growth initiative.
- Dimon said that Chinese banks have an unfair advantage because they can more easily acquire U.S. businesses than the other way around.
- European regulators should allow for the formation of a pan-European bank to make them competitive with other global lenders.