Sanders Announces Tax Plan Addressing Income Inequality

Courtesy of Creative Commons

By Lily Hartenstein

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders released a plan on Monday to tax companies with extensive pay gaps between executives and workers, as a means to target income inequality, a primary focus of his campaign. 

Companies who pay their highest paid employee more than fifty times their median workers will be taxed, starting at half a percentage point and capping at 5 percentage points depending on how wide the pay gap is. A company that pays their top executive five hundred times or more than their median employee would get taxed at 5 percent.

The income inequality tax would apply to all private and publicly held corporations with annual revenue of more than $100 million. It would raise an estimated $150 billion over the next ten years, according to a statement by the Sanders campaign. 

“It is time to send a message to corporate America: If you do not end your greed and corruption, we will end it for you,” Sanders said, as he discussed the plan.