Uncle Sam seems to be gearing up to take more tax dollars from Mitt Romney and his brothers in the private-equity fraternity.

The Internal Revenue Service is preparing rules and guidelines in the event that "carried interest" -- the money private-equity firms pay current and former executives like Romney every year, if the firms do well -- gets taxed like regular income, Reuters reports.

Many people, including rich ones, from Warren Buffett to maybe even sometimes Romney himself, agree that it doesn't make much sense for carried interest to be taxed at only 15 percent, the rate of capital gains. Capital gains are when you gamble your own money in the stock market, or what have you, and come up a winner. You get carried interest, in contrast, simply for showing up to work every day and managing other peoples' money for them in a reasonably competent fashion. In Romney's case, you can still get that money even if it's been years since you were active in private equity.