Rewarding the Capitalists

After the U.S. Senate approved the corporate tax-cut bonanza last December, Boeing,the plane maker, boosted stock buybacks by $4 billion and hiked its dividend by 20%, both overwhelmingly benefiting wealthy shareholders and top executives, not workers. Boeing is estimated to be getting a $221 million tax cut in 2018 thanks to the new law. Like a lot of big American corporations, Boeing hardly needs this handout: it paid an average effective federal income-tax rate of just 5.4% over a recent eight-year period

 After Congress passed the tax plan that month, Boeing unveiled a $300 million spending program to indirectly assist employees through charitable giving, workforce development and “infrastructure enhancements.” But that investment will be less than a tenth of what it gives shareholders through buybacks alone, and it does nothing to boost workers’ take-home pay.

Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness, explained, “Boeing has frequently paid tiny if any U.S. taxes. Now it’s using its latest large tax cut to reward already wealthy shareholders and top executives, not to give raises or even bonuses to hard-working employees. This is what opponents of the Trump-GOP tax scam predicted would happen.”

Boeing had profits of nearly $5 billion last year on revenues of more than $94 billion and is number 24 on the Fortune 500 list.