Global Entertainments

Citigroup, Abbott Laboratories, and AT&T are amid the 26 companies that paid added to their CEOs in 2011 than they did in federal taxes, according to a abstraction appear on Thursday.

Tax breach on analysis and development, accomplished losses, and foreign-held balance were amid those abating the tax amount for abounding companies on the list, said the Convention for Policy Studies, a left-leaning anticipate catchbasin in Washington, D.C.

Citi, Abbott and AT&T all took affair with the institute's methodology. All three said they paid all taxes owed
in 2011.

During a presidential acclamation aeon in which abundance and taxes are about debated, the study's authors said the U.S. tax cipher has become an enabler of ample CEO pay, while additionally alms companies means to abate their tax bills.

Four pay-related tax breach accumulated to amount taxpayers $14 billion in uncollected federal taxes, the address said.

The four included breach ambidextrous with performance-based arch controlling pay and banal options, as able-bodied as the best 15 percent tax amount on agitated absorption enjoyed by clandestine disinterestedness ally and added financiers, it said.

Compensation for the 26 CEOs whose pay surpassed their companies' accumulated tax bills averaged $20.4 million, according to the study. That boilerplate was up 23 percent over aftermost year.

The boilerplate was additionally decidedly college than pay tracked by abstracted studies of broader groups. For instance, $10.3 actor was the boilerplate 2011 absolute advantage for 300 large-company CEOs tracked by pay consultants Hay Group.

Current U.S. taxes paid eyed
To get its list, the convention compared CEO pay to accepted U.S. taxes paid, excluding adopted and accompaniment and bounded taxes that may additionally accept been paid, as able-bodied as deferred taxes that can about be far beyond than accepted taxes paid.

The group's account was that U.S. taxes paid are the abutting approximation accessible in accessible abstracts to what companies may accept absolutely accounting in their checks for aftermost year to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

Among companies topping the institute's list:

    Citigroup, the banking casework giant, with a tax acquittance of $144 actor based on above-mentioned losses, paid CEO Vikram Pandit $14.9 actor in 2011, admitting an advising vote adjoin it by 55 percent of shareholders.
    Telecoms accumulation AT&T paid CEO Randall Stephenson $18.7 million, but was advantaged to a $420 actor tax acquittance acknowledgment to billions in tax accumulation from contempo rules accelerating abrasion of assets.
    Drugmaker Abbott Laboratories paid CEO Miles White $19 million, while accumulation a $586 actor refund. Abbott has 64 subsidiaries in 16 countries advised by authorities to be tax havens, the convention said.

Abott takes issue
"This is a arrant bribery of the facts," Abbott agent Scott Stoffel said.

He said Abbott did not get a rebate, but paid the U.S. government $700 actor in federal assets taxes in 2011, and that the report's numbers reflect a non-cash accounting acclimation acquired by the resolution of assorted tax matters.

A Citigroup backer said that, while the aggregation did not pay federal assets tax in 2011, that was due to abundant losses it recorded in 2008 and 2009, a breach accessible to all businesses in agnate straits.

She additionally acclaimed that Citi paid on boilerplate $3.7 billion a year in federal assets taxes from 2000 to 2006, and paid added taxes aftermost year, including added than $3 billion in amount taxes, and that Pandit voluntarily took a bacon of aloof $1 in 2010.

AT&T said in a account its CEO's pay was carefully angry to achievement and was fair, and that the accelerated deductions that bargain its federal taxes stemmed in allotment from $20 billion spent in abutment of the U.S. abridgement and jobs. The aggregation appear advantageous $3.8 billion in added taxes aftermost year, and hundreds of millions in federal assets taxes in 2010.

All the tax breach articular in the abstraction are acknowledged and shareholders about apprehend companies to booty advantage of any reasonable tax breach they can, said David Wise, a chief arch with Hay Group.

If the tax cipher afflicted to annihilate pay-related deductions, like the banal advantage deduction, he said, "individual companies could cross that adequately easily. But collectively, those dollars would add up and access the tax base."