corporations pay more to execs than they pay in taxes

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Now, can we stop complaining that our corporate taxes are too high, or at least get them paying taxes in the first place?

So, your idea for succesful business is the one that pays more taxes than salaries? Brilliant!

Corporations paying taxes? How anti-American!

@NZM: It makes sense when it comes down to loopholes in the tax code where not only do corporations not pay much tax, but the CE Os and stuff also don't pay much tax.

Yes. I concur with you. There are huge transnationals (okay, that's a tautology) that owe HM R&C billions, if not millions in unpaid taxes. That money could effectively, pay off our huge-ass deficit. But because our rich-boy politicians, most of whom do not know even anyone on middle-incomes, are chummy with the likes of these companies, and depend on them for election monies... you get the picture.

REMEMBER: unpaid taxes. Not MORE taxes. Unpaid. As in, they're actually commiting tax evasion. Or aversion. Something.

edited 23rd Jun '11 4:27:08 PM by Inhopelessguy

Also @NZM: "This isn’t really surprising when you consider that several of the largest U.S. corporations simply paid no taxes at all last year. General Electric, for instance, made more than $5 billion last year, but had a tax rate of -64 percent, meaning it received billions in tax benefits. Boeing hasn’t paid any federal income tax in three years, while CEO Jim Mc Nerny made $19 million last year."

That's the problem, right there.

Where's that quote from? I swear I read that article.

It's in the article.

Again, I'm not going to argue here but I'm all for low taxes. Fix the loopholes and make them pay? Yes. Give them huge taxation and regulations? Hell no.

@NZM: "At the moment, a slew of multinational corporations — who already pay exceedingly low taxes — are lobbying for yet another tax boondoggle that would cost the government nearly $80 billion in revenue over the next ten years. With corporate taxes already so low, and corporations flush with cash and paying tens of millions to their CE Os, there’s little reason to grant these huge companies yet another giant tax giveaway."

Because our government keeps proposing "tax cuts" for these people. In the US, if tax cuts push your income tax into the negative percentile, the government gives you money.

Well, it's more that "tax cuts" is a bit of a broad term, and includes all sorts of subsidies and benefits that are not cuts, but rather direct pay-outs.

And I'm against those. Low, flat taxes - that's all.

x4 That's weird. Some of that was lifted directly from the Economist. Meh, it gets the point across.

Tax cuts help no-one except the poor and lower-middle income families.

Good luck with that, too many people have interests which they which to serve through tax policy. Some of them are invalid, but others are quite valid.

I'm not sure if this kind of comparison makes sense since as nzm said, paying more in taxes than salaries doesn't actually make sense. The real issue is the zero or even negative tax rate they are paying, which I'm sure even nzm cannot agree with.

edited 23rd Jun '11 4:45:14 PM by breadloaf

@blue: depends on worldview. There is a concept of 'small government' and it's pretty much possible to introduce

Negative taxes? I thought that the minus was a dash. Little taxes paid, I get... NO taxes, is stupid... NEGATIVE? On top of buying their shoddy crap, the taxpayer is paying them to... make the shoddy crap that they'll sell to us again?

x3

Executive Salaries. Not salaries over all, but their executive salaries.

How top-heavy should executive pay be?

Are they contributing that much value versus say the benefits the corporations receive from the government?

Not an argument for this thread.

edited 23rd Jun '11 4:48:28 PM by blueharp

It woudn't make sense if it was corporate revenue and corporate taxes, but it's executive pay and corporate taxes, which is a more meaningful comparison

I love it when people say Obama is going to kill businesses when corporate tax rates have been extremely super low.

Nixon was very tax heavy on corporations however.

Obama is just not good at business himself. That's why the media paint him as some anti-corporate Socialist (which is a laugh to many of us).

I mean I get it, I'm as displeased about top-heavy salaries as the next non-exec worker who actually has to put in the time to make the money he/she earns but it's hard to make that comparison as a sort of rule. That's all I mean. Like if a guy paid $25000 in taxes on the profit made and his salary was $100 000, that's hardly unreasonable for a small business.

Of course, these guys make 10 million base salary forgetting bonuses for their total compensation and own billions in stock, while their corporation gets tax rebates of all hilarious things. Worse yet, corporate dividends aren't even taxed because it is assumed (wrongly it would seem!) that tax was already paid via corporate income tax.

And then they have the gall to complain about hikes in minimum wages/ mandatory benefits for all employees/ etc.

Your number applies to a small business, not to a major corporation such as referenced here.

Let's say they have 1 billion in profits, pay 10 million in taxes, but 25 million in executive pay. What if it's 1 million and 30 million?

Different numbers come across differently.

edited 23rd Jun '11 7:00:52 PM by blueharp

If the company made... i dunno, 1 million per year? that a reasonable amount? That would be a small company, right?

CEO gets 300,000 while 350,000 goes to the state? that's a liberal amount for the state in the US, BTW. I would be fine with this. But for a larger company, I would say that the execs should get much less, percentage wise, than what goes to the state.