John,

Our latest report, titled “More for Them, Less for Us”, shines a spotlight on 35 large profitable corporations that paid their 5 top executives more in compensation than they paid in federal income taxes over a recent 5 year period.

Tesla paid its founder Elon Musk and the other 4 highest-paid executives $2.5 billion while receiving a $1 million tax refund on $4.4 billion in net profits.

T-Mobile paid its top 5 executives $675 million while receiving an $80 million refund on almost $18 billion in profits.

Combined, these 35 corporations received corporate tax refunds of nearly $2 billion.

Thankfully, there are solutions that can fix our broken tax code and start making big corporations pay a bigger share of their profits in taxes than in excessive salaries for their top brass:

• By raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, we would generate $1.3 trillion in new revenue over the next decade that could be used to lower costs for working people on everything from healthcare to housing to food.

• By raising the stock buyback tax from 1% to 4%, we’d not only discourage corporations from manipulating stock prices to further enrich shareholders and CEOs, instead of investing those profits back into worker pay; we’d generate $20 billion in tax revenue this year alone.[1]

• By passing the No Tax Breaks for Outsourcing Act, we could end tax breaks that encourage corporations to shift jobs and profits offshore, ensure corporations pay the same tax rate on their foreign profits as they pay on their domestic earnings, and stop U.S. corporations from merging with smaller, foreign corporations to dodge taxes.

Add your name and tell Congress to pass critical policy solutions that end rampant corporate tax dodging and that rein in excessive executive pay.

Our new report was written in conjunction with the Institute for Policy Studies, utilizing data from ITEP. We’re using this kind of critical research to hold large, profitable corporations accountable and demand Congress pass policies that put working people, not Big Business, first.

Take action today: add your name to demand Congress fix our broken tax code. We need to get rid of tax rules that encourage big corporations to funnel massive profits to executives and shareholders at the expense of worker wages and of the tax revenue we need for vital public services.

Together, we will not stop fighting for a tax system and economy that puts working people first.

David Kass
Executive Director
Americans for Tax Fairness Action Fund