A recent study found that 35 major US companies paid their top executives more than they paid in federal income taxes between 2018 and 2022, as reported by The Guardian.
Derived from The Institute for Policy Studies and Americans for Tax Fairness, the findings show that the most prevalent offender among the companies is Tesla.
The company, owned by Elon Musk, earned $4.4 billion during those five years as its executives were earning $2.5 billion.
During this period, Tesla did not pay any federal taxes, yet still received $1 million in refunds from the government.
In total, the high-ranking executives of the 35 companies listed pulled in more $9.5 billion over these five years, while cumulatively, those same companies received $1.8 billion back from the government in exchange for paying little to no federal taxes.
Eighteen of these businesses reported net profits over the time window but didn’t pay a dime in federal income tax, with all but one still consistently receiving federal refunds.
The study also names other large companies such as T-Mobile, Netflix, Match Group, and Ford Motor alongside Tesla.
T-Mobile made $17.9 billion, paid executives $675 million, and received $80 million in refunds. The mobile provider has also spent a significant amount of money on lobbying Congress for tax breaks, spending $9 million in 2022 alone.
Netflix was one of the companies that actually did pay some taxes, but the $236 million was just 1.6 percent of its $15.1 billion in earnings, and just over a third of what it paid the top executives of the company.
The statutory rate for federal income tax is currently 21 percent.
Musk is currently the second richest person in the world, with Forbes writing he had a net worth of $207.9 billion at the start of March.
