Saturday, April 28, 2012

CEO Pay, Low Tax Rates & Tax Evasion

(More photos of cash)

As I stated in a previous post, in 1952 the cost of a union's wage and benefit package for a steelworker was $1.08 an hour (or $2,246 a year). In 1953 GM’s president “Engine Charlie” E. Wilson took home $586,100 a year when the minimum wage was $0.75 an hour. ($2,246 is 0.38% of $586,100)

The Dodd-Frank "disclosure mandate" for CEOs now requires all publicly traded corporations to annually reveal the ratio between what they pay their top executive and what they pay their median — most typical — workers.

The SEC has not yet written the regulations necessary to put this new pay ratio disclosure mandate into effect, mainly because corporations have unleashed a fearsome lobbying campaign against it. Corporate heavyweights are pushing Congress to repeal the mandate and, in the meantime, doing everything they can to gum up the works and delay the SEC regulation-writing process.

The stats show that big-time CEO pay outpaced average worker pay by 380 times in 2011, up from 343 times in 2010. The average CEO pay of companies in the S&P 500 Index rose to $12.94 million in 2011. Overall, the average level of CEO pay in the S&P 500 Index increased 13.9% in 2011, following a 22.8% increase in CEO pay in 2010.

And a great portion of their salaries are taxed, not as regular wages, but at the capital gains rate of only 15%. Obama extended the Bush tax cuts for 2 years in 2010 and is set to expire at the end of the year.

The capital gains tax is now at the lowest rate since the preferential treatment of capital gains was first initiated in 1921, when the top marginal rate of 73% went down to 58%, the war and excess profits tax was eliminated, and capital gains was taxed at 12.5% (In 1976 the capital gains tax peaked at 49%).

Yes, it was a Republican AND a banker that accomplished this (Andrew Melon).

Congress should change the tax code to tax ALL income as regular income according to the current tax brackets, making capital gains taxed at 35% after $388,350. We wouldn't need a "Buffet Rule". (Read: Lowest Income Earners Always Get Screwed the Most)

Ten years of the Bush tax cuts have proved without a doubt that low taxes on the top 1% didn't create jobs. How many jobs did Romney create last year with his $22 million in earnings and his 13.9% tax rate?



Mitt Romney is taxed at a lesser rate than most teachers, but the GOP always says, "We don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem." Talk about veracity!

And lo and behold...these are the very same people who are the most likely to be guilty of tax evasion too. Read: $385 Billion Lost to Tax Evasion. Congress is to blame for eliminating IRS auditors in budget cuts.

Pay Watch site invites visitors to their website where they can link to an online tool that makes it easy to send a message that urges the Securities and Exchange Commission “to force CEO-to-worker pay ratio disclosure.”

The new Pay Watch site dramatically spills the beans. The site reveals how the 40 biggest mutual funds are voting on shareholder initiatives to discourage excessive executive pay — and offers an easy-to-use interactive tool that investors can use to express their displeasure with CEO-friendly fund managers.

@VanJones68 @samsteinhp @SenSanders @MittRomney @RBReich @AnnDRomney
#VanJones68 #samsteinhp #SenSanders #MittRomney #RBReich #AnnDRomney

1 comment:

  1. From 1973 to 2011 worker productivity has gone up 80%. The median income (including benefits) for workers has gone up 11% in the same time period. I think we can all see where the gains have gone. A huge transfer of wealth from labor to capital and according to the GOP, it's still not enough.

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