The lower your income, the more likely you are to pay your fair share of taxes–or even more than your fair share. Billionaires and big corporations still manage to evade taxes and Republicans in Congress continue to block funding for auditing them. Also: contrary to Republican propaganda, immigrants pay more than their share of taxes.
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A couple of reports document what my dad always knew: the most wealthy and powerful corporations and individuals still get rich off all the rest of us. Robert Reich sums it up on BlueSky:
5 years of exec pay:
Tesla: $2.5 billion
T-Mobile: $675 million
Netflix: $652 million
Ford: $355 million
5 years of federal income taxes paid:
Tesla: $0 ($1M refund)
T-Mobile: $0 ($80M refund)
Netflix: $236 million
Ford: $121 million
Anyone else see the problem here?
Reich’s quick summary comes from “More for Them, Less for Us: Corporations That Pay Their Executives More Than Uncle Sam,” a detailed study published in March 2024 by the Institute for Policy Studies. In the bullet-pointed summary of its findings:
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- 35 major U.S. corporations — including famous names like Ford, Netflix and Tesla — paid less in federal income taxes between 2018 and 2022 than they paid their top five executives. All 35 were cumulatively profitable over that five-year span.
- Among these 35 corporations, the total compensation reported for named executive officers over this five-year period was $9.5 billion. Their combined federal income tax bills came to a negative $1.8 billion — that is, rather than paying taxes, they received refunds.
- An additional 29 profitable corporations paid their top executives more than they paid in federal income taxes in at least two of the five years of the study period.
- 18 corporations in the study — despite reporting net profits over the five-year span — paid $0 in federal income taxes. Actually, except in one case, all paid less than zero because they got refunds. These 18 corporations that paid $0 in federal income taxes found the resources to lavish their executives with a cumulative $5.3 billion in pay packages.
- The 64 firms in the study posted cumulative pre-tax domestic profits of $657 billion between 2018 to 2022, yet paid an average effective federal tax rate of just 2.8% (the statutory rate is 21%) while paying their executives over $15 billion.
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A few important stories from the week’s news–just in case you missed them.
The Russians are coming after your prescriptions—and your vote.
UnitedHealth owns Change Health. Change Health and CoverMyMeds route most insurance claims from most pharmacies. So when Russian-speaking ransomware ring known as Black Cat or AlphV hacked Change Health (and other medical facilities) on February 21, pharmacies and patients across the country saw snarls, delays, and denials of coverage. UnitedHealth “estimated that more than 90 percent of the nation’s 70,000-plus pharmacies have had to alter how they process electronic claims” because of the hack.
While UnitedHealth tried to downplay the impact on patients, people around the country told stories of being denied coverage and required to pay full price for their prescriptions.
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Mary Turck