If only Uncle Sam could do as well.
Some of America’s top-paid CEOs are raking in a lot more dough than their companies shell out in federal taxes, a shocking study reveals.
The report by a Washington think tank found 29 of the nation’s 100 wealthiest chief executives were drawing bigger checks than the ones going to Uncle Sam.
“We’re not accusing them of any criminality. But it should be a crime to not pay your fair share of taxes, and that isn’t the case right now,” said Sarah Anderson, who co-authored the report for the Institute for Policy Studies and the Center for Effective Government.
The analysis, “Fleecing Uncle Sam,” urged Congress to reform tax laws to force corporations to pay up when it comes to federal taxes.
Zeroing in on the country’s 30 biggest corporations showed the CEOs of Boeing, Chevron, Ford, Citigroup, General Motors, JPMorgan and Verizon were paid an average of $17.3 million in salary and compensation in 2013.
Despite those corporations collectively reporting more than $74 billion in pretax profits in 2013, they received a combined $1.9 billion in refunds from the Internal Revenue Service, the study found.
Had those companies paid the full statutory corporate tax rate of 35%, they would have owed $25.9 billion in federal taxes, the report found.
“This report certainly cries out for tax reform and is a clear statement to the average person that something is wrong here, that corporations aren’t paying their fair share of taxes,” Scott Cheslowitz, a certified public accountant and corporate tax expert with accounting firm Rothenberg & Peters, told the Daily News.
Anderson – who co-wrote the study with Scott Klinger, director of revenue and spending policies at the Center for Effective Government – hopes the report shines light on “a debate which isn’t getting a lot of attention.”
Most of the corporations responded to the study on Tuesday, releasing statements saying they abide by U.S. tax laws.
Verizon slammed the study as being wrong.
