The Institute for Policy Studies has a revealing new report out today, “Executive Excess 2011: The Massive CEO Rewards for Tax Dodging.” Among key findings: at 25 companies “chief executive compensation actually ran higher than the company’s entire federal corporate income tax bill.” Before jumping into the details, let’s look at who these 25 modern day robber barons are:
Of many revealing statistics throughout the report, here’s two that I pulled to highlight:
• These 25 CEOs averaged $16.7 million, well above last year’s $10.8 million average for S&P 500 CEOs. Most of the companies they ran actually came out ahead at tax time, collecting tax refunds from the IRS that averaged $304 million.
• Of the 25 companies that paid their CEO more than Uncle Sam, 20 also spent more on lobbying lawmakers than they paid in corporate taxes. Eighteen gave more to the political campaigns of their favorite candidates than they paid to the IRS in taxes.
Warren Buffett invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs right before they were bailed out. He then cashed in on the taxpayer funded bailout that followed. Now he drops $5 billion on Bank of America…
