Bill Moyers: The Rich Pay Fewer Taxes!

Benjamin Franklin, who used his many talents to become a wealthy man, famously said the only things certain in life are death and taxes. But if you're a corporate CEO in America today, even they can be put on the back burner, death held at bay by the best medical care money can buy and the and the latest in surgical and life extension techniques, taxes conveniently shunted aside courtesy of loopholes, overseas investment and governments that conveniently look the other way. In a story headlined, "For Big Companies, Life Is Good," The Wall Street Journal reports that big American companies have emerged from the deepest recession since World War II more profitable than ever: flush with cash, less burdened by debt, and with a greater share of the country's income. But, the paper notes,"Many of the 1.1 million jobs the big companies added since 2007 were outside the US. So, too, was much of the $1.2 trillion added to corporate treasuries." To add to this embarrassment of riches, the consumer group Citizens for Tax Justice reports that more than two dozen major corporations, including GE, Boeing, Mattel and Verizon, paid no federal taxes between 2008 and 2011. They got a corporate tax break that was broadly supported by Republicans and Democrats alike. Corporate taxes today are at a 40-year-low, even as the executive suites at big corporations have become throne rooms where the crown jewels wind up in the personal vault of the CEO. Then look at this report in The New York Times: Last year, among the 100 best-paid CEOs, the median income was more than 14 million, compared with the average annual American salary of $45,230. Combined, this happy hundred executives pulled down more than two billion dollars. What's more, according to the Times "these CEO's might seem like pikers. Top hedge fund managers collectively earned $14.4 billion last year." No wonder some of them are fighting to kill a provision in the recent Dodd-Frank reform law that would require disclosing the ratio of CEO pay to the median pay of their employees. One never wishes to upset the help, you know. It can lead to unrest.