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At least 25 top United States companies paid more to their chief executives in 2010 than they did to the federal government in taxes, according to a study released.
The companies which include household names like eBay, Boeing, General Electric and Verizon —averaged $ 1.9 billion each in profits, according to the study by the Institute for Policy Studies.
But a variety of shelters, loopholes and tax reduction strategies allowed the companies to average more than $ 400 million each in tax benefits —which can be taken as a refund or used as write-off against earnings in future years.
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 CEO’s are fashioning, with their executive leadership, more effective and efficient enterprises,” the study concluded. “On the other hand, ample evidence suggests that CEO’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.”
The study comes at a time when business leaders have been lobbying for a cut in corporate taxes and Congress and the Obama administration are considering an overhaul of the tax code to reduce the federal budget deficit.
