VIDEOS – In the United States, many companies will pay billions of dollars in increases and bonuses to their employees in order to “celebrate” the reduction in corporate taxes, orchestrated by President Trump. A fairy tale that only reflects part of reality.
This is capitalism with a big heart. Corporate Christmas spirit. A “surge of love” – in the words of US President Donald Trump – from American companies for their employees… Several of them have indeed announced with great fanfare massive increases and other exceptional bonuses for their employees. A way to celebrate the tax reform orchestrated by Trump. In particular, it must reduce corporate and household taxes by approximately… 1,500 billion dollars over the next ten years! Thus, an average family of four earning $75,000 will see their tax cut by more than $2,000.
50 shades of generosity
Emboldened by this promise kept by President Trump, large American companies have therefore redoubled their generosity in recent days, the banks and companies most exposed to the American market in the lead: they are the ones who will benefit the most from this reform and the fall in the corporate tax rate (IS) which will therefore drop from 35% to 21%. Bank of America, for example, will pay a $1,000 bonus to all its employees earning less than $150,000 a year. That's half of its workforce. Wells Fargo will recalculate its minimum wage to … 15 dollars an hour, twice the federal minimum (at 7.25 dollars)! Generosity is also surging in telecoms: Comcast and AT&Trevealed that they were going to pay exceptional bonuses of 1000 dollars for 300,000 employees! Comcast also plans to spend $50 billion on infrastructure and renovations.
If these generous gestures are very real, they also hide another, less rosy reality: this unpopular tax reform – including among Donald Trump's voters – should ultimately further increase economic inequalities in the United States. In recent weeks, analysts have noted that no less than 32 large companies have announced share buybacks, which represent approximately $90 billion, the Washington Post reported a few days before Christmas. In other words, all these savings generated by the tax reform mainly benefit share buybacks and other increases in dividends!
- Donald Trump enacts lower taxes
- US tax law worries Europe
- Trump's tax measures, a partisan reform that will stimulate growth
- Tax reform: Donald Trump almost keeps his big promise
- In December, the Trump presidency stakes its future in Congress
