U.S. corporations and CEOs game the system

A new study by the Institute for Policy Studies reports that at least 25 top United States companies paid more to their chief executives in 2010 than they did to the federal government in taxes.

The companies — which include household names like eBay, Boeing, General Electric and Verizon — averaged $1.9 billion each in profits. Rather than paying taxes these firms each received more than $400 million in tax rebates.

The authors of the study, which examined the regulatory filings of the 100 companies with the best-paid chief executives, said that their findings suggested that current United States policy was rewarding tax avoidance rather than innovation.

“We have no evidence that C.E.O.’s are fashioning, with their executive leadership, more effective and efficient enterprises,” the study concluded. “On the other hand, ample evidence suggests that C.E.O.’s and their corporations are expending considerably more energy on avoiding taxes than perhaps ever before — at a time when the federal government desperately needs more revenue to maintain basic services for the American people.”

It is outrageous that Republicans, like Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, are demanding huge cuts in federal discretionary spending, cuts to education, health care, research and development, local governmental services such as police and fire protection, and emergency federal disaster relief while they allow U.S. corporation's to manipulate the tax system to avoid contributing their fair share and reward CEO's with unconscionable salaries that have no relationship to performance.

The NY Times article is linked here.