Twenty-five of the 100 highest paid U.S. CEOs earned more last year than their companies paid in federal income tax, a pay study by a Washington think tank said on Wednesday. See who some of them are, in order of their compensation.
so? there are plenty of public companies that have not yet turned a profit and paid no taxes, yet do you expect the ceo to work for free?
I agree there are a LOT of over paid CEO's. But souldn't this be an issue for the share holders? Surely you're not suggesting federal government control of private company salaries.
This is a good metric to measure how good a CEO is. The lower the tax bill the more I pay the CEO. If you are on the board and need to hire a new CEO, do you risk trying to save a few dollars by hiring from middle management and put the whole company at risk or do you hire someone with experience but at CEO money.
Correct answer to this topic can only be given by a tax accountant. May be there was a big loss few years ago which resulted in cancel out of this year's income to be taxed. Sad to see a company like Coca Cola paid only $8M in tax to US Federal government. Bet most of the oil companies are also based offshore in order to avoid Federal taxes. Greed has no end until it backfires.
Indeed. Big firms hire good accountants who minimize their tax bills. Obviously these companies aren't going to pay more in tax than they legally have to. Hate the game not the player.
Sorry, but I have to side with the socialists on this one. OK, I'll make an exception for a company that is losing money, but I don't think any of these fall into that category. And anyway, a company losing money should not be shelling out $15 mill for a CEO. I understand that taxable profit may be manipulated by accounting tricks and legal tax minimization techniques. I also appreciate that executive compensation is a matter for the board. Of course, that is the same board appointed by the CEO and full of his cronies and lackeys. A lot of them are CEOs themselves and have a huge conflict in deciding pay levels. The issue here is one of perception. There are two problems. One, huge companies with billions in revenues that somehow manage to avoid paying much in the way of taxes. Good for them, bad for the system and for the perception of fairness. The other problem is the sheer level of executive compensation. It surpassed obscene years ago and is now almost beyond pejorative description. How do you tell workers to take a pay or benefits cut when they see the CEO taking home $20 mill? How do you hold the line on tax increases when these hogs make more in a week than 10 schoolteachers or policemen? I don't want the government deciding pay levels for business, but the model that the board makes decisions in the best interests of the business and shareholders is clearly broken. That system is as corrupt as our political system, maybe more so. Pols at least have to answer to voters. These guys only answer to each other, and since they all have their hands in the shareholders pockets, no one is going to criticize anyone else. I'm sure I'll hear about the extraordinary skills, etc they bring and how you have to pay for that. Well, every one of these guys is going to die and I'llwager the compnay goes on just fine. If Apple can scrape by without Steve Jobs, I really doubt any of these hogs is so essential anyone would notice if they were gone. I will make one exception, Aubry McClendon. He is such a notorious hog that Cheseapeake stock would soar if something happened to him.
here is how it's "suppose" to work: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/07/apple-ceo-steve-jobs-2010_n_805762.html the problem with the bunch above is that while their stocks are doing nothing,they keep pocketing nice salaries and have no interest in their company stock prices. how about no taxes on corp at all,CEO and top management paid via stock. USA would be booming in less than a year