Thursday, March 26, 2009

Obscene salaries and bonuses

I have great difficulty understanding why anyone needs more than a million dollars a year to be happy. I don't grudge those who are lucky enough or clever enough to earn obscene amounts of compensation but I wonder about those who are forced to live on ten thousand a year. Philosophically I'm embarrassed by the disparity between the compensation of corporate officers and the people they employ. The AIG/AIU people who are being "kept" to unravel the mess they have created had better do just that. The folks who have vacated the premises should not get any form of bonus. Period.

Anyhow. I would like to propose a tax change which would not limit the amount of money a corporate exec could earn. It would simply transfer the responsibility.

In any corporation, the amount of salary plus benefits plus bonus paid to any individual up to one million dollars US would be deductible as employee expense. Any money or benefit beyond one million dollars would not be deductible for tax purposes. There would be no limit to the compensation but anything beyond a million would have to come directly out of stockholder's equity.

2 comments:

Padre Mickey said...

I can't think of anyone who does anything worth $100,000.00 per year, let alone one million.

PseudoPiskie said...

I don't either but we have to deal with reality and there are lots of people who think they are worth far more dollars than they actually are. And they have the power to demand them.