Washington, D.C.–On Wednesday, April 25, Anthem will hold its quarterly earnings report. Will the telecom giant answer as to why more of its estimated $520 million 2018 tax cut is not being directed to employees or to create jobs for American workers?
According to a new website launched by American’s for Tax Fairness, which tracks what corporations are doing with their Trump-GOP tax cuts, the big health insurer will get a tax cut windfall of $520 million, 9 times more than the company said it will put towards retirement contributions due to its tax cut. In February, Anthem said it would contribute $58 million through a one-time $1,000 contribution to employee retirement accounts. The company increased its dividend and the CFO assured financial analysts that approximately 50% of the benefits of the tax cuts would eventually end up in shareholders’ pockets.
“Americans are not fooled by WHO IS BENEFITING THE MOST FROM the Trump and Republican tax CUTS. Big corporations, like Anthem, have been loudly touting a boost in employee pay, but Americans see right through it. Anthem should be ashamed. Instead of passing MOST OF ITS tax cut savings to their EMPLOYEES AND THEIR customers, Anthem is slipping their tax windfall to wealthy executives and shareholders,” said Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness.
President Trump and Congressional Republicans made major promises that workers would see their pay increase by at least $4,000 a year due to the huge corporate tax breaks contained in the massive $1.9 trillion tax cut law. The truth is that most of the Trump-GOP tax cuts benefit the wealthy and big corporations.
As the ATF website documents:
- Only 390 of America’s 26 million businesses have announced a one-time bonus or a wage hike for workers tied to the new tax law.
- Only 4.1% of all workers have been promised such payouts, 6.3 million out of 155 million American workers.
- Corporations are getting 10 times as much in tax cuts as they are giving out in workers’ bonuses and wage hikes, $66 billion vs. $6.5 billion.
- Corporations are spending 40 times as much on stock buybacks as they are spending on workers’ bonuses and wage hikes, $259 billion vs. $6.5 billion.
- Despite the deceptive inclusion of the word “Jobs” in the law’s title, more than 96,000 workers have been laid off since the tax bill passed Congress.
Visit AmericansforTaxFairness.org to view our findings and for additional stories on what corporations are truly spending their tax cuts on.