In his State of the Union handle, President Joe Biden referred to as out “huge government pay” and vowed to “make massive companies and the very rich lastly pay their share” of taxes.
Company tax dodging and CEO pay have gotten so uncontrolled that many main U.S. firms are paying their high executives greater than they’re paying Uncle Sam.
Tesla is probably probably the most dramatic instance. Over the interval 2018-2022, the electrical automobile maker raked in $4.4 billion in earnings however paid no federal earnings taxes. In the meantime, Tesla CEO Elon Musk grew to become one of many world’s richest males.
In the case of fleecing taxpayers whereas overpaying executives, Tesla is hardly alone. A brand new report we co-authored for the Institute for Coverage Research and Individuals for Tax Equity analyzes government pay information for a number of the nation’s most infamous company tax dodgers.
What did we discover? Along with Tesla, 34 different massive and worthwhile U.S. companies—together with family names like Ford, Netflix, and T-Cell—paid much less in federal earnings taxes between 2018 and 2022 than they paid their high 5 executives.
One other 29 worthwhile companies paid their high executives greater than they paid Uncle Sam in at the least two of the 5 years of the examine interval.
One firm on our checklist stands out for the notorious function its executives performed within the 2008 monetary disaster: American Worldwide Group. Again then, the insurance coverage big ignited a firestorm by pocketing a $180 billion taxpayer bailout after which saying plans at hand out $165 million in bonuses to the exact same executives chargeable for pushing the corporate—and the nation—to the brink of collapse.
At the moment, AIG is taking part in the identical grasping sport of overpaying its high brass and sticking taxpayers with the invoice. Between 2018 and 2022, the corporate paid its high 5 executives greater than it paid in federal earnings taxes, regardless of gathering $17.7 billion in U.S. earnings. In 2022, CEO Peter Zaffino alone made $75 million.
Lavish government compensation packages and skimpy company tax funds should not unrelated. Executives have an enormous private incentive to rent armies of lobbyists to push for company tax cuts as a result of the windfalls from these cuts typically wind up in their very own pockets.
The 2017 Republican tax legislation slashed the company tax fee from 35% to 21% and failed to shut loopholes that whittle down IRS payments even additional. Many massive, worthwhile companies ended up paying no federal taxes in any respect.
Firms took the financial savings from these tax cuts and spent a record-breaking $1 trillion on inventory buybacks, a monetary maneuver that artificially inflates the worth of executives’ stock-based pay.
Rich executives grew to become even wealthier whereas the nation misplaced billions of {dollars} in company income that might have been used to decrease prices and enhance providers for extraordinary individuals. Till this self-reinforcing cycle is damaged, we’ll have a company tax and compensation system that works for high executives—and nobody else.
What can we do to interrupt this cycle?
Congress can deal with the entwined issues of insufficient company tax funds and extra government pay on a number of fronts. Elevating the company tax fee to twenty-eight% (simply midway again to Obama-era ranges) would generate $1.3 trillion in new income over the following decade.
Congress should additionally shut loopholes and remove wasteful tax breaks, as an illustration by eradicating the incentives for American companies to shift earnings and manufacturing offshore.
Policymakers even have a wealth of instruments to curb extreme government pay, from tax and contracting reforms to stronger rules to rein in inventory buybacks and banker bonuses.
We all know we want change when companies are rewarding a handful of high executives greater than they’re contributing to the price of public providers wanted for our financial system to thrive.
