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Greedy Capitalist Pigs Celebrate Massive Tax Break … by Giving Employees More Money
As soon as the House and Senate had passed the big tax reform bill Wednesday, AT&T made a big announcement. The telecom leviathan said it would give more than 200,000 US employees a special bonus of $1,000. AT&T also increased its US capital expenditures budget by $1 billion.
“This tax reform will drive economic growth and create good-paying jobs,” CEO Randall Stephenson said. “In fact, we will increase our US investment and pay a special bonus to our US employees.”
An hour later, Fifth Third Bank announced that nearly 3,000 workers will see their pay rise to $15 an hour. The company also said they will hand out $1,000 one-time bonuses to their workforce.
Then, an hour after that, Wells Fargo announced that it too will boost its minimum wage to $15 an hour. The bank also allocated $400 million for donations to the community in 2018.
Man, this tax cut news just keeps getting worse and worse.
Published in Domestic Policy, Economics
The best part for me is the repeal of the individual mandate. It was a tax cut for me without doing any calculations.
I just tweeted out the headline, giving due credit to Jon, of course.
I would say no, but I’m sure the media could make it sound sinister if they wanted to.
I’m going to repeat my comment on @jeromedanner‘s post to the Facebook Ricochet group:
Yes, because a big problem the GOP constantly has is to get killed in the court of public opinion. Democrats are simply better at messaging than Republicans, in fact our leaders often seem to not even make the attempt. I would like to believe that is a long delayed but desperately needed shift to taking control of the news cycle.
The reason for the bonuses is tax arbitrage. By paying bonuses now, the companies can deduct them as compensation from their 2017 taxes at the higher corporate rate do this year. We will see if they offer as many bonuses next year at the lower rates of the new bill.
True, but the pay raises are not arbitrage. On the contrary, they will only be significant starting in 2018 and presumably continue indefinitely. I’m sure the employees appreciate the bonus money anyway, arbitrage or no.
Such a debbie downer.
It’s very easy to look good at messaging when the media does most of the heavy lifting for you and can be relied upon to squash, mischaracterize or lie about Republicans.
As I often say about Clinton’s and Obama’s vaunted skills in “handling” the media: it’s much easier to handle them when they are licking your boots.