Sanders introduces legislation to tax excessive CEO pay

[Hassin Bin Sober]

Sanders introduces legislation to tax excessive CEO pay

https://www.accountingtoday.com/news/sanders-lee-and-tlaib-introduce-legislation-to-tax-excessive-ceo-pay

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., teamed up with Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Barbara Lee, D-Calif., to introduce legislation Wednesday in the Senate and the House to raise the federal corporate income tax rate on companies that pay their CEO more than 50 times as much as their average employee.

The Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act would impose tax penalties on large public and privately held U.S. firms that overpay their top executives at the expense of their employees. The extra tax would add 0.5 percentage points to the federal corporate income tax rate on companies with gaps of 50 to 1, and increase gradually, topping out at five percentage points on companies that pay their CEO more than 500 times median worker pay. In cases where the CEO doesn’t earn the company’s largest compensation, the ratio calculation would be based on the highest-paid executive.

[cstanleytech]

1. The companies can weasel out of it by giving the CEOS low pay but build in higher severance packages

so when they leave they get millions still.

[Blue_true]

4. I agree. Or do like they do now and give executives stock options.

I am a little bothered by the rule on private companies. Many of those or S-Corps or Sole Proprietorships. If the company net profit after taxes is $20 million and the owner takes 5% of that and hand out 25% to employees in bonuses, the owner is going to run afoul of Bernie's rule, because he or she would take home $1 million and it is highly unlikely that the average employee would be anywhere near that, eventhough average employees take home hundreds or thousands of bonus dollars.

[cstanleytech]

8. Best way to address the wage inequality is to do it via linking the employees wages to the

poverty level.
By that I mean the corporate tax rate should be raised very high and all deductions should be removed however companies can get lower rates but its linked to how many of their employees earn 500% or more over the federal poverty level.
The more workers they have that earn over that the lower their taxes and workers include temp workers and contract workers so they cannot try to weasel around it via using either temp agencies or contracting their workers to cheat.

[Blue_true]

10. I like your ideas.

I think implementing them would be a sound start toward reducing income inequality. I would also like to see rules that induce companies to invest more in employee skills training, plant and equipment. A producing company should be more focused on setting itself up for future growth than buying back stock or investing the money in the stock market - companies may need to buy short-term bonds to temporarily store money until it is spent on some of the above items. One of the issues with most American metals mills is that instead of investing in modern smelting technology, they bought back stock and handed out big bonuses to executives.

[cstanleytech]

12. Well there would be one exception of workers as far as wages go

and that is those under 18 attending middle and or high school.
After all those are usually living at home and working at fast food and not as reliant on having to earn a living wage but otherwise it would be enforced for most workers a company has.

[Blue_true]

15. Where I live most of the food workers appear to be adults.

A chain called Zaxby's seem to have a mix of high school and college students and head of households or spouses, but in most restaurants the workers appear to be head of households or a spouse. So food worker pay still must be a living wage, or the city, county and profitable companies must step in to retrain people for higher paying jobs, the issue there is most profitable companies are multi-nationals that have no real anchor in communities and politicians too frequently don't look out five to ten years into the future when planning.

[cstanleytech]

16. I know and the same here its why I specified those 18 and younger that are still in school.

[Blue_true]

17. Is it fair to pay employees that are doing the same work different wages based only

upon age? If a 17 year old is doing the same work as a 27 year old head of household, the 17 year old should get the same hourly pay.

The reality of running a business is that there always is going to be differences in pay rates that a business owner can't prevent. Typically the difference is skills based, but there are exceptions than an acute business person may make, for example an excellent dishwasher or janitor that keeps things clean and areas functioning is worth as much as an average cook or office assistant that meets job requirements but nothing more.

[cstanleytech]

18. I think so. The jobs are rarely vital for them to live on and its more of a learning thing for when

they get out of school and move into the job market as adults.
An adult on the other hand working in such an establishment would see an improvement as would a number of retail workers should such a plan be implemented as I suspect it would cause alot of those business to promote workers to full time as the benefit of relying on low wage part timers would evaporate.

[George II]

11. That's what companies have been doing for decades.

[Eric J in MN]

21. They are using total compensation not just salary.

"CEO compensation. The SEC regulations require companies to include in their executive pay calculations all salary, bonuses, the estimated value of stock and stock option awards, changes in pension value, and perks." https://www.sanders.senate.gov/download/tax-ceo-faq?id=BEF46DB2-807A-4389-9FB1-4D30D3734376&download=1&inline=file

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

2. Bernie showing, once again, he's no friend of Wall Street and won't take its dirty money.

Bernie/Elizabeth or Elizabeth/Bernie 2020!!
Either way, they're stronger together!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[Eliot Rosewater]

3. Are you implying some of the D candidates are "friends of Wall street taking their dirty money?"

Name them please.



As to the proposal, it is a great idea.

[Blue_true]

5. I hope that you like the sound of crickets.

People make that tired old claim over and over because Senator Sanders seem to make it often when someone challenge his policy logic.

[Eliot Rosewater]

6. Yeah, and the truth is we both know some people here would LOVE to BASH our democratic

candidates.

sick of this shit

[Blue_true]

7. Pretty much all of the Bernie people here are decent people.

Some seem to have on rose colored glasses when it comes to Bernie, but I fully expect that they will get behind the party nominee if that isn't Bernie.

[melman]

13. "some people here"

Name them.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

14. Agreed!

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

22. Only Bernie could catch hell for leading Democrats in the right direction... again!!

Does anyone really think Wall Street gives a shit about the average person on Main Street?! I sure as hell don't think so, which is why I emphatically support the candidacy of Bernie and Elizabeth and, more importantly, TRUST them to "take care of business" once elected President/Vice President.


Bernie/Elizabeth or Elizabeth/Bernie 2020!!
Either way, they're stronger together!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[MichMan]

9. Will this affect every major sports franchise ?

Pretty Certain that a LeBron James or Stephen Curry easily makes over 50 times what the median paid employees are. For that matter, so would a top college coach like Nick Saban or Jim Harbaugh.

[boomer_wv]

19. So the effect will be.....

That companies keep paying their CEOs as much as they want and just cut enough regular employees to make up for the tax increase.

This is really simple. Corporations value their CEOs much more than they value any single line employee. If a company fires its CEO, there's a good chance the stock is going to tank. If they fire 100 random employees, there's a good chance it's going to actually go up. So this bill isn't going to change the difference between CEO and regular Joe pay, it's just going to make there be less regular Joes.

I'm also not sure how comfortable I am with the federal government telling companies what business decisions to make. What's the next bill? Are we going to tell them how many employees they have to have? What state or town they have to be in? This is just populism, not sound governance.

[comradebillyboy]

20. Another silly proposal from Bernie. He won't be haappy until

everyone makes $15 per hr.

[TidalWave46]

23. It's shocking how little Sanders knows about that which he rails against. NT