Guardian UK: The new robber barons: how taxpayers subsidise CEOs' multimillion salaries

[marmar]

The new robber barons: how taxpayers subsidise CEOs' multimillion salaries
A new report finds many top executives are taking home more than their corporations pay in taxes – at our expense

Pratap Chatterjee
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 19 August 2012


Lanai, a tiny resort island in Hawaii, has 18 miles of secluded beaches, no traffic lights and a population of just over 3,000. This summer, Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle, a California-based software company, bought 98% of the island for a sum reported to exceed $500m.

The Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington DC thinktank, says that a chunk of the money Ellison spent buying Lanai should have paid for elementary school teachers and clean energy jobs, instead of fulfilling the billionaire CEO's vacation fantasies. That's one conclusion of their new report, "The CEO Hands in Uncle Sam's Pocket: How Our Tax Dollars Subsidize Exorbitant Executive Pay", which points out that Oracle took advantage of a 1993 loophole in tax law to designate $76m of Ellison's income as "performance-related pay", which allowed him to avoid paying any taxes on the money.

Dozens of US CEOs have cashed in on this major tax incentive at an estimated cost to US taxpayers of $9.7bn last year. Statistics provided by National Priorities Project suggest that the same amount of money could have paid for 142,625 elementary school teachers, or healthcare for 4.96 million low-income children.

"At a time of austerity, it's beyond absurd that billions of our tax dollars are pouring into executive pockets," says Sarah Anderson, a report co-author. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/19/new-robber-barons-how-taxpayers-subsidise-ceos

[Initech]

1. There's more than a few of these robber barons that deserve stiff prison sentences.

The fact that Larry Ellison owns his own private island - literally - is fucking obscene to say the least. Its definitely a "let them eat cake" moment.

[Frustratedlady]

2. Why are the shareholders screaming?

Those high salaries are money out of their stock values, right? Am I wrong?

[Hydra]

3. You know what?

I'm going to treat this like the "legitimate rape" comment.

Steal EVERYTHING. Do it in broad daylight. Dare us to do something about it. Keep doing it!

The apologists can't go forever- at some point, there will only be the 99% and the 1%, and no "bridge" between them. At that point...oh, crap, we'll still have people arguing for how they "deserve" to keep their ill-gotten gains.

[freshwest]

4. K & R