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58 Comments
- bossm4n, on 04/03/2008, -2/+18Some CEO's are high-maintenance, just like some women.
- yoda17, on 04/03/2008, -6/+16Why is this a problem? If the shareholders approved it, then it it their money to do with as they wish.
- tanameyer, on 04/03/2008, -0/+10WOW! I think that the title of this submission is the first time that I have seen an apostrophe being used correctly in a sentence on the Internet. Even the possessive pluralization is correct!
Hats off to you! - Coug, on 04/03/2008, -1/+9Compared to the rest of the news that's been coming out this is great! The taxes are getting paid!
- rmxz, on 04/03/2008, -0/+7Well - it's not that direct. The shareholders picked a board - who picked a compensation committee - who gave the cash to the CEO.
But yeah - it's not the CEO's fault. It's his board's - which in turn is the shareholder's responsibility. - saigumi, on 04/03/2008, -2/+8On the other hand you understand that Boards of Directors are made up from other C-Level executives from other companies that creates a huge circle-jerk of "You pay me more, I will vote to pay you more."
- bossm4n, on 04/03/2008, -5/+11We refer to those men as professional athletes.
- ElectroOverlord, on 04/03/2008, -1/+6Can you imagine Hot Ass Lookin' CEO woman types?
Double high-maintenance... - judicar, on 04/03/2008, -6/+11.. or
80% of CEOs don't take perks to pay for taxes.
But hey, cynicism is all the rage these days - numberneal, on 04/03/2008, -1/+6now i know what to put as a caption under salary requirements on my next cover sheet;
- doktorrocket, on 04/03/2008, -1/+6My company pays 100% of my taxes; income, capital gains, property, sales, etc. all included.
They pay them by sending me bi-weekly checks, a portion of which I then forward to the appropriate federal, state, or local authority. - Protector, on 04/03/2008, -6/+11On the one hand you have a person who can't spell "Paid" or understand that a Board of Directors decides pay, bonus schedules, and various other perks, unless the company adopts a say on pay policy where shareholders decide the fate of the C-Level Execs.
On the other hand you are just jealous that you will never be a C-Level executive or you'd know what goes on, on the one hand.
It's not a tough call. - inactive, on 04/03/2008, -2/+6Erm... since when exactly is salary and benefits corruption? Do you shriek in horror when offered 2 weeks vacation? Or is it only corruption if they have more benefits than you?
- Tomboys, on 04/03/2008, -10/+13Some CEO's are high-maintenance, just like some men.
- relic180, on 04/03/2008, -4/+7I'm torn on this one.
On the one hand you have a person higher up in the company, who should have more perks, and which are being payed for by shareholders not taxpayers who apparently agreed to this.
On the other hand you have my utter and completely irrationally hatred of all things CEOish which tells me that those fat, stupid, executive bastards should be thrown out of the tiny windows of their personal corporate jets onto large spikes that explode.
It's a tough call. - insultingbozo, on 04/03/2008, -1/+4I don't see a problem w/ this unless the companies were hiding the facts from their investors (which is possible... why didn't the study comment on that?).
- TheYar, on 04/03/2008, -2/+5This is misleading to the point of being blatantly unethical journalism. Companies who own private jets encourage their top executives to take the private jet, even for personal travel. You're a lot less likely to suffer a cancelled flight and get stuck somewhere when you're flying corporate. But the value of that at tax time is pretty large, large enough for a financially responsible CEO to say, "no, thanks." It costs about $10,000 to fly a corporate flight. If you're a CEO in the top tax bracket, that's $3,500 at tax time for *each flight.* Even for a millionaire, that's a good bit of money, and they aren't all millionaires. So the company pays the tax, too. It's important enough to the company and its shareholders that the executives fly corporate, to reduce the risk of getting stuck somewhere on personal travel and missing an important meeting, that they pay for it, including the "gross-up" so it doesn't force the CEO into a significant financial loss at tax time. Stop acting like this is "corruption." This is very, very far from anything resembling corruption.
- AxeSwinger, on 04/03/2008, -0/+3If you're asking about how company boards of directors are connected look at.
http://www.theyrule.net/2004/tr2.php
Not my site, don't receive any benefit just pointing to a resource. - AbsurdParadox, on 04/03/2008, -1/+4Good game, sir.
- RainNIU, on 04/03/2008, -0/+3I'm jealous, and so I hate them.
- CedEx, on 04/03/2008, -0/+2Or Rappers.
- cubicledrone, on 04/03/2008, -0/+2Fine. Let's see a straight up or down vote of all the individual shareholders of a company (average, everyday working people) that ratifies paying the CEOs taxes for him or her, something which is unavailable to each and every one of those shareholders. Let's see that motion carried on a straight up or down vote. One company. Just one.
- sgtpppr, on 04/04/2008, -0/+2Yeah...I'm actually curious as to how many people commenting here are actually on 1099 or some other non-W2 tax system. People who are not actual regular employees of a company or have ownership in the company have a hell of a lot more tax liability. You are basically expected to pay a certain portion of your income back into the company or your tax rate is so damn high you get destroyed on April 15. Because of this, many large companies actually do your taxes for you and pay what taxes you owe as your 'bonus'. Most of the time, the company saves money by simply paying someone's taxes for them instead of paying them a huge bonus. It's especially prevalent in companies where they file for the owners at the same time as the company. Then they can actually control how much taxes you owe (and they pay for you). It pays to have a company CPA who is good at what they do.
- Sagarian, on 04/03/2008, -0/+2Precisely correct. The cost of the air travel benefit in this example is wholly borne by the company. The fact that it costs the company more to provide than its retail cost due to federal tax policy isn' t the CEO's fault.
- inactive, on 04/03/2008, -0/+2That is PART of their pay package. Socialism and/or government regulated pay ratios sounds like a fantastic idea .... for underachievers and slackers. You should move to a socialist country and try it for a while. Let us know how it works for you.
- GSnake, on 04/03/2008, -1/+3There seems to be a very sharp contrast between those who support capitalism to the death, and those who believe capitalism is the cause of all death. As long as executives do not embezzle money from shareholders or tax payers, I see no issue with the way they decide to spend their budgets. The truth is, if an executive's 'lucrative' lifestyle is so financially damaging, the company would notice that it's a problem and address it appropriately. As long as a company is pulling in a return on investment for shareholders, they will give perks to CEOs and other executives. If someone is running a company that's earning you solid profits, wouldn't you want to pamper them to keep the ball rolling?
Those who bash capitalism are the ones who do not understand it. - Sagarian, on 04/03/2008, -0/+1Care to cite some of those circle-jerks? CEOs who sit on each others' Boards, which is precisely what you're implying?
- inactive, on 04/03/2008, -0/+1other people's money
- wendelgee2, on 04/03/2008, -0/+1The level of their compensation, and the fact that they don't even have to pay the taxes on THAT, is corrupt. When the CEO makes hundreds of millions and the people actually designing, creating, and marketing the widgets get hundreds of thousands, that's corruption. Hell, if I were in charge, I'd pay myself a lot too. But to assume that these ridiculous compensation packages are somehow organic results of capitalism is naive.
- inactive, on 04/03/2008, -0/+1Would you like the drive-through operator at McDs running your company? So why would expect there NOT to be different pay packages? Sure, you can argue that some CEO's are overpaid but to say it's corruption isn't accurate.
- kurtwinter, on 04/03/2008, -0/+1Why does anyone deserve perks? Seriously. They are paid enough. Why should a person earning $10 million annually need free use of the company jet? Is that person incapable of paying for a plane ticket? Their pay package should be enough. Its already a slap in the face of the working people who give their time, or the investors who give their money for them to get ***** options packages that encourage them to trade long term viability for short term gains, but to see them get all this ***** for free, really slam dunks the case for regulated pay ratios.
- Protector, on 04/03/2008, -0/+1You REALLY don't wanna get that proven. He's right that CEO's sit on Boards. They are supposed to be treated as steering committees so that the business gets the supposed best in breed. Look at Apples board of directors.
Bill Campbell is the chairman and former CEO of Intuit, Millard Drexler is the Chairman and CEO of J. Crew, Gore is on the Board, as is Jobs, Andrea Jung is the CEO of Avon, and Levinson is the CEO of Genentech, then we have Eric Schmidt of Google fame, and Jerry York of Harwinton Capital which I believe is one of the primary investors. - toxicshok, on 04/03/2008, -2/+3I fail to see the corruption
- TheYar, on 04/03/2008, -0/+1I think that is part of the point, actually. Some of the companies who do this are ones who've been burned in the past when a CEO wasn't paying his taxes.
- Protector, on 04/03/2008, -0/+1Nah, that paid comment was just a perk. See what I did there?
- wendelgee2, on 04/03/2008, -0/+1Sure...that's a more cynical way of saying what I tried to say in the original posting.
The Right often complains about the inherent corruption in socialism and communism, but gets lazy about policing the inherent corruption in capitalism...which is driven by greed, as you said...and these ridiculous compensation packages for CEOs that are not directly tied to the profitability of the company are a pretty obvious example of that.
The point is not that socialism and communism are better systems, but that all systems require maintenance...which is a role that the Right is loathe to undertake.....and now we have a housing bubble that's burst, so thanks for not providing regulation for that market, Mr. Bush. - sgtpppr, on 04/04/2008, -0/+1I think that sums up most of the comments here.
- sgtpppr, on 04/04/2008, -0/+1Doesn't really matter what you say and how you back it up with facts. The crowd here is very anti-capitalism and has a very hard time believing anyone who works their ass off and is successful isn't corrupt and a direct relative of Satan. It's almost as if CEOs have been molesting millions of children and they've all grown up with some complex. I would doubt the majority of commenters here have any experience at all with company finance, company equity/ownership, and tax liability outside of a W2. I don't see how it matters if a company pays a CEO a $2 million dollar bonus for making the company $250 million this year or if they just pay $2 million in taxes instead. The taxes are getting paid. People just want to think that the gov't is 'sticking it to' the rich fat cat CEO via taxes. What is it with America and it's jealously for the rich? If they do something illegal, then you have a case against them, but has nothing to do with anything illegal.
I don't think most diggers even comprehend the amount of money that goes through a large corporation on a daily basis. People will pitch a socialist fit when a CEO gets a $2 million bonus, but they forget this was voted on to keep them there and happy (many of them leave like free agents in baseball...see eric schmidt) and is a drop in the bucket compared to the budgets they deal with. How many companies do you think spend in excess of $5 million a day in advertisements? Most of the time, these bonuses are less than 1% of total payroll. If you split that bonus among all the employees of the company, everyone would get like $12. - gradient01, on 04/04/2008, -1/+2This sort of thing makes me sick because it's so pervasive. There's a wonderful book by John Bogle called The Battle For The Soul of Capitalism which describes why this is *****, how it happens, and what Institutional investors should be doing but aren't. There is no way in hell any CEO is worth what they are being paid -- often times, all it leads to is cooking the books and screwing employees out of pensions so they can extract millions in bonus pay for accounting gymnastics.
- inactive, on 04/03/2008, -0/+1McD's offers two weeks of vacation? /*note to self, submit application to McD's*/
- sgtpppr, on 04/04/2008, -0/+1I don't see how it's any of your business what a company chooses to pay it's CEO or top level management as a bonus. Why does this make you sick? Because you're not getting the money they do? You are honestly coming out here saying no CEO is worth the money they are being paid then saying 'often times' it leads to illegal practices? Come on man, wake up and stop being such a conspiracy nut. You have no proof at all for any of these claims. You simply are on the 'everyone with money or a high level job is corrupt illuminati' bandwagon. Only in American do we hate the poor, the rich, and everyone in between. it's ALWAYS some conspiracy and it's always someone else's fault we're not wealthy and happy. Take some responsibility for yourself and try to succeed. Only a coward sits and complains about what everyone else has and does nothing to earn the same for themselves.
Of all the nationalities of the world, no one comes close to the US when it comes to sense of self entitlement. - sgtpppr, on 04/04/2008, -0/+1Please post your qualifications to judge what they 'deserve'. I love it when people with zero business knowledge just make sweeping generalizations. I'm really sad for this country when supposedly rational people want the successful to be 'regulated' by the government because they are too successful. There is nothing worse than a bitter worker with no drive and a sense of self entitlement complaining about what others have instead of working for it themselves. If you spend your whole life complaining about all the things you don't have that others do and making it a point to make sure they get theirs taken away, you'll die a very unhappy person.
- brokensystem, on 04/05/2008, -0/+0Call it what you want to but pay packages for far too many of the CEO's are way out of hand. And it's mainly to do with the good old boy I'll scratch your back you scratch my back activity that goes on in most of these corporations.and their board of directors. Where would all these wonderful million or billion dollar babies be if it weren't for the workers? Wonder how many copies of Windows Bill Gates could have manufactured, packaged, advertised, shipped, etc., etc. by himself? Without regulation you have the problems our country is facing now, a crumbling economy due to greed. Sadly though, especially under this current administration, regulation of business is the last thing on their mind.
- sgtpppr, on 04/04/2008, -1/+1It's just jealousy. People are all for free market, but when someone's successful, they want to see them take a fall. If they do everything legally, then it MUST be some kind of collusion or corruption. It's why tabloid shows are so big. America loves it's celebrities and successful business people almost as much as they hate them. People that are pissed about CEO taxes just don't understand the tax system. If they are doing something illegal, the IRS will catch them and they'll pay the price. What is in this article has nothing to do with corruption or illegal tax practices. The company, board of directors, and share holders provide a bonus to a CEO and people are jealous of it. It doesn't matter who pays the taxes as long as someone does.
- cubuffs155, on 04/03/2008, -0/+0That didn't fit into the 150 words allowed by USA Today
- sgtpppr, on 04/04/2008, -1/+1Then how about going to work for a company that gives you stock that allows you a vote? Of course that would require you work and not sit and complain. You always have the option to go work somewhere else. I promise you don't work anywhere near as hard as a corporate CEO and I promise you are not held responsible for even 1/100th of what they are. If the company falters when they're behind he helm and the stock drops, they can be ***** canned without a moment's notice. Everyone in the US wants to be a millionaire, but no one wants to work for it.
Quit your job. Start your own company. Pay yourself however you want. You choose not to. - brokensystem, on 04/05/2008, -0/+0People who are too successful? Look at our wonderful President, if he would have been born to a trash collector or autoworker what do you think the chances are he'd be where he is right now? Not much. Get real, there are so many people in high, extremely well paid positions not because of their own merit but strictly because of what family they belong to or what friends they have. The company I work for is so typical of many. A family owned business handed down through three generations. The current guy who is considered the owner now is such a arrogant screw up it isn't funny. He essentially just inherited a self running multi million dollar company. The original founder had the wherewithal to start it, the rest have pretty much been spoiled brats, all the time looking down on everyone else thinking they're superior. People with power and money tend to get carried away, not many people handle either very well. They need to be kept in check, regulated, look at the mess our economy is in due to lack of regulation. So many people were busy getting rich quick raping the public and system they didn't realize, or care, how stupid they were being. A lot of the business or corporate criminals make armed robbers look like angels. Hell, considering that, those same armed robbers might as well be let out of jail. They're certainly not slackers, they're not sitting on their asses doing nothing. They're out there making money the way they know best. I guess you could call them movers and shakers.
- IslandDog, on 04/03/2008, -3/+3A big......so what?
- cubicledrone, on 04/04/2008, -0/+0You haven't the first glorious ***** clue how hard I work and I guarantee you I produce more than any five crouton-munching, phone-flipping corporate douchecannons. I don't give a ***** about millionaire. I'd be happy to see one person I know get five paychecks without a layoff, cutback, threat of a layoff, company bankruptcy or some ***** manager wiping their gangrene-clogged asscrack on the tablecloth.
Let's see a straight up or down vote. You don't want a vote because you know it will be a unanimous "*****" from the shareholders. - MrWhite7, on 04/03/2008, -3/+3Is this a problem?
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