Highest- paid US bosses 'earned more than their firm's taxes' in 2010: Study

Washington, Sept 1(ANI): A new study has shown that the 25 highest- paid United States chief executives earned more than their companies paid in federal income taxes in 2010.

According to the left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) think- tank, the average annual income of the 25 corporate bosses was 16.7 million dollars.

General Electric's Jeff Immelt is one of the chief executives who, the study said, earned 15.2 million dollars, while his firm got a 3.3billion tax refund in 2010.

Its spokesman, however, said the "inaccurate" study did not include significant federal income taxes paid in 2010 for previous years.

The IPS report did not take into account the foreign, state local and deferred taxes accruing to the company.

A Boeing spokesman rejected the report as "simply wrong".

The IPS said two thirds of the 25 bosses led companies that utilized offshore subsidiaries in tax havens such as Bermuda, Singapore and Luxembourg.

"I think it's an exposure of weakness in a company if their profitability is dependent on their accounting department and not on making better widgets", the BBC quoted IPS senior scholar Chuck Collins, as saying.

The study also found many firms spent more on lobbying politicians than on paying taxes.

The report hit a nerve on US Congress, with Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings calling for an investigation "to examine the extent to which the problems in CEO compensation that led to the economic crisis continue to exist today". (ANI)