The Associated Press recently reported that 600 executives at the banks just bailed out by the U.S. government took in $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses and perks last year. That comes to about $2.6 million per exec, but we all know that not all execs are created equal.
Then came this news from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which searched publicly available data filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and determined that 83 of the 100 largest publicly traded corporations and 63 of the 100 largest federal contractors maintain subsidiaries in countries generally considered havens for avoiding taxes.
Prominent among these entities are Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and American International Group (AIG), bailout faves of Henry Paulsen. Citigroup alone has 427 tax haven subsidiaries.
The GAO made no determination as to whether these companies actually used their subsidiaries to avoid U.S. taxes, but we all know what the assumption is.