Excessive CEO compensation isn’t a new topic of argument, nor is corporate taxes. But the Institute for Policy Studies recently reported disturbing information about both in its annual review of U.S. executive compensation. The review looked at the country’s 100 highest-paid chief executive officers as of 2010 — and 25 of them stuffed more into their bank accounts than their companies shelled out to the IRS!
Of course, that’s actually easy to do if your company isn’t paying corporate taxes at all. Which was the case for 20 of the 25 aforementioned companies. Here’s a quick look at the top five offenders:
| Company | Ticker | CEO | Executive Compensation | U.S. Corporate Income Taxes Paid in 2010 |
| Prudential Financial | PRU | John Strangefeld | $17,187,028 | -$722 million |
| Verizon | VZ | Ivan Seidenberg | $18,126,854 | -$705 million |
| Bank of New York Mellon | BK | Robert Kelly | $19,379,257 | -$670 million |
| Dow Chemical | DOW | Andrew Liveris | $17,739,490 | -$576 million |
| Honeywell | HON | David Cote | $15,216,953 | -$471 million |
| Source: Institute for Policy Studies | ||||
Among other study findings:
- Major corporate CEOs were paid 325 times more than the average American worker, up from a 263 multiple in 2009.
- Average pay for S&P 500 CEOs averaged more than $10 million in 2010.
Read the IPS report “Executive Excess 2011: The Massive CEO Rewards for Tax Dodging” here.
For a look at CEO pay vs. company performance, read InvestorPlace writer Will Ashworth’s articles about Lorillard and Altria, as well as Occidental and Apache.
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