Once Upon a Time, Corporations Paid Taxes

Too Much | Inequality and Excess, A Commentary on Economic Inequality.

 ONCE UPON A TIME

In 1950, by statute, major corporations faced a 42 percent tax rate on their profits, and the share of profits corporations actually paid in taxes, after exploiting loopholes, averaged about 40 percent throughout the 1950s.

The tax hit on top executive individual incomes would be even heftier. In 1950, General Motors chief Charley Wilson took home more pay than any other U.S. chief executive. Wilson reported $586,100 in income that year, about $5.6 million in today’s dollars. He paid $430,350 of that income — 73 percent — in taxes.