Big Stores & Their CEOs Are Paying Much Less Thanks to Trump Tax Law

Big retailers and their top bosses are enjoying their own big discounts this holiday shopping season and all through the year thanks to the 2017 Trump-GOP tax law, according to a new study by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF). In the seven years following enactment of the law, the eight large retailers in the study collectively paid a tax rate little over half what they paid in the four years before the law (17.5% vs. 31.3%). Meanwhile, the eight stores’ CEOs have saved up to $35 million on their personal returns because of just one cut in the law that was extended this past summer.

“America’s giant retailers are enjoying massive tax savings, paying little more than half the tax rate they paid before the Trump tax law. While at the same time prices have soared for consumers and retail workers remain stuck in low-wage jobs, big-store CEOs and shareholders have reaped higher profits and lower taxes,” said David Kass, ATF’s executive director. “If we want a system that alleviates economic stress on average Americans instead of exacerbating it during the holiday season, we need to raise taxes on corporations and the rich, invest in workers and families with expanded public services.”

SOURCE: Americans for Tax Fairness

The eight retailers in the study–Amazon, Best Buy, Costco Wholesale, Home Depot, Lowe’s Target, TJX and Walmart–collectively earned more than half a trillion dollars ($548 billion) over the period 2018-24. Of those profits, over three-quarters ($340 billion) were used for the benefit of shareholders as either dividends or stock buybacks. Shareholders are almost exclusively wealthy: the highest-income 10% own 87% of all corporate stock; the richest 1% own about half. Foreign investors own about 40% of U.S. equities. 

The chief executives of the eight firms were collectively paid $1.3 billion in compensation over that seven year span. Because the Trump tax law cut individual income-tax rates–including most importantly for the CEOs, the top rate–they could have together saved up to $34.7 million on their individual tax returns over those seven years. Almost $20 million of those savings could have gone to just the three highest-paid bosses: Amazon’s Andrew Jassy (total seven-year compensation: $263 million), Walmart’s C. Douglas McMillon ($258 million), and Target’s Brian Cornell ($238 million).  (See Methodology for an explanation of how potential personal tax savings were calculated.)

SOURCE: Americans for Tax Fairness

Meanwhile, the average worker at the eight stores was paid less than $32,000 in 2024 (the latest year with available data). Amazon–the world’s largest retailer–refuses to even sit down with its employees who have formed a labor union for better pay, benefits and working conditions. If Lowe’s had used the nearly $50 billion it spent on stock buybacks over the seven- year period to instead raise employee wages, its workers would have each been paid almost $200,000 more. 

METHODOLOGY: Public corporations regularly report the compensation of their top executives, but individual tax-return data is private. Actual tax savings from the lowered rates would depend on the filing status and taxable income of each taxpayer in each year. Taxable income in turn depends on deductions, credits and other adjustments to gross income. Tax savings shown here are the maximum possible.