Sen. Bernie Sanders has a plan to narrow the pay gap, tax corporations that pay their CEOs over 50 times what their typical workers make. Elisabeth Buchwald reports in MarketWatch:
Sen. Bernie Sanders is taking aim at the Americans who have made the most money during the economic downturn caused by the pandemic.
On Wednesday, Sanders, an independent from Vermont, unveiled legislation called the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act, which would levy higher taxes on corporations “that pay their top executives at least 50 times more than the pay of a median worker.”
For companies that pay their top executives between 50 and 100 times more than their typical workers, their corporate tax rate would increase by 0.5%, according to a summary of the bill. The highest penalty, an additional 5% corporate tax rate, would kick in for companies that pay top executives over 500 times the median worker pay.
At these rates, Walmart WMT, -0.72% would have paid $854.9 million more in taxes last year, given that CEO Doug McMillon made 983 times more than the median Walmart worker making $22,484 that year, according to a memo circulated by Sanders ahead of a Senate Budget Committee hearing Wednesday on income inequality.
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