The Oregonian Reports Highest Paid Executive “Glad” to Pay Federal Income Taxes

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The Oregonian Reports Highest Paid Executive “Glad” to Pay Federal Income Taxes

InsideCapitolDome
The nation's highest paid executive is "glad" to pay federal income taxes, according to a front page story in The Oregonian.

The Oregonian Reports Highest Paid Executive “Glad” to Pay Federal Income Taxes

The nation’s highest paid executive is “glad” to pay federal income taxes, according to a front page story in The Oregonian.

Well, at least in a front page story in The Oregonian on March 17, 1950 (PDF).

That year the highest paid executive in the U.S. was Charles Skouras, the head of National Amusement Co. Inc. and Far West agency, according to the report in The Oregonian. His $800,000 salary ($7.6 million in 2012 dollars) was taxed by the federal government at 92 percent.

“I just pay 92 percent. That’s easy to figure,” Skouras explained. “If I got to pay it I’m glad to pay it to the United States government.”

Today, top CEOs make much more than Skouras made in his day, they pay a top marginal federal tax rate of 35 percent, and rare are those among them who declare they are glad to pay taxes.

Some high-income business people in Oregon, however, don’t mind paying taxes.

Members of the Equity Alliance of Oregon “believe that sustaining and investing in state infrastructure will strengthen our business environment” and that “taxes are necessary to meet our common goals as a society.”

And they have ideas about how to improve our revenue system.

Let’s hope that we soon find the Equity Alliance of Oregon and their ideas on the front page of The Oregonian.

 


This blog post was originally posted on www.blueoregon.com on October 13, 2012. The original post can be found at http://www.blueoregon.com/2012/10/i-oregoniani-reports-highest-paid-executive-glad-pay-federal-income-taxes/.

 

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Written by staff at the Oregon Center for Public Policy.

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