CONFIRMED: Following Release Of Senate Democrats’ Report, Independent Analyses Show That After Passage Of #GOPTaxScam, Corporations Are Spending Far More On Buybacks For Corporate Executives And Wealthy Shareholders – Far More Than On One-Time Bonuses.

Senate Democrats are tracking corporate share buyback announcements so the American people can see where the GOPTaxScam is really going atHttp://Democrats.Senate.Gov/Goptaxscam

Reuters: U.S. Corporate Share Buybacks 'Explode' In February: Research Firm. “U.S. corporations have announced more than $218 billion in share buybacks since Congress enacted the Republican tax overhaul in December, an investment research firm said on Wednesday. The California-based firm TrimTabs, which tracks corporate buybacks, said the value of buyback programs announced in February alone surged to $153.7 billion from $59.9 billion in January, smashing a previous monthly record of $133 billion in April 2015. ‘Activity has certainly accelerated. Buybacks increased for five consecutive months beginning in July 2017 and have exploded in February,’ said TrimTabs analyst Winston Chua. ‘If the pace keeps up, this year’s volume will smash totals from all other previous years going back more than a decade,’ he added. Meanwhile, U.S. Senate Democrats said in a separate report that $209 billion worth of U.S. corporate share buybacks have been announced since Jan. 5, claiming the figure shows that the Republican tax overhaul largely benefits corporations, corporate executives and wealthy shareholders.” [Reuters,2/28/18]

Wall Street Journal: Boom in Share Buybacks Renews Question of Who Wins From Tax Cuts. “U.S. companies are buying back their shares at an aggressive pace, stirring debates in Washington and on Wall Street about how savings from corporate tax cuts are being used and who benefits most. Share buybacks announced by large U.S. companies have exceeded $200 billion in the past three months, more than double the prior year, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data for S&P 500 companies. Among the biggest: Cisco Systems Inc. at $25 billion, Wells Fargo & Co. at about $21 billion, PepsiCo Inc. at $15 billion, AbbVie Inc. and Amgen Inc. at $10 billion apiece, and Alphabet Inc. at $8.6 billion. Announced buybacks surged in December as lawmakers in Washington finished writing a bill to cut U.S. taxes by $1.5 trillion over a decade, and continued at a robust pace in January and February. … It is a hot-button issue in Washington too. Democrats have pointed to buyback announcements as proof that the tax law’s benefits are tilted to high-income households. Tens of millions of households have stock investments, but some 84% of stocks are held by the wealthiest 10% of households. By another measure, about a third of U.S. corporate stock is owned by foreigners. … Trump administration officials have tallied more than four million Americans receiving bonuses or wage bumps. That would put the total value at a few billion dollars of income, well below announced buybacks.” [WSJ,3/1/18]

Washington Post (Wonkblog): Trump Praised An Ohio Bank For Hiking Wages. Now The Bank Is Making An Even Bigger Payout — To Shareholders. “When an Ohio bank announced raises and bonuses for low-wage workers because of the Republican tax cuts, President Trump touted it as evidence the tax law would be a boon to workers — and not, as Democrats charge, a giveaway whose primary beneficiaries are among the wealthy. On Tuesday, that bank, Fifth Third, said it would buy back as many as 100 million corporate shares, a move that is projected to cost nearly $3 billion. By reducing the number of shares in circulation and driving up a company's stock value, corporate share buybacks tend to mainly benefit investors who continue to hold the company's shares, as well as company executives whose pay is often tied to the value of their share price. Some economists say gains in the stock market are overwhelmingly concentrated for the rich. The $2.8 billion corporate share buyback dwarfs the estimated $48 million cost of the bank's wage hikes and one-time bonuses this year.”[Washington Post,2/28/18]

Huffington Post: Americans Ask What The Tax Law Does For The Country, Not What It Does For Them. “Republicans have claimed vindication from all the stories about bonuses, saying workers have received more than $3 billion in extra pay so far. But the value of share buybacks has vastly exceeded the sum of bonuses. According to Senate Democrats’ count, companies have announced more than $200 billion worth of share repurchases so far this year.  Share buybacks aren’t the kind of capital investment that makes workers more productive, which in turn potentially increases wages. Rather, buybacks inflate the value of shares, which are overwhelmingly owned by the richest people in America and make up a large portion of CEO compensation.” [Huffington Post,2/28/18]

Accounting Today: Corporate Tax Cuts Going Toward Share Buybacks. “Major corporations have authorized $200 billion in share buybacks in the two months since the passage of the new tax law while more than 55,000 American workers have been laid off, according to Senate Democrats. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was supposed to spur hiring and investment at companies as the maximum corporate tax rate was slashed from 35 to 21 percent, according to Republican proponents. But Democrats point to evidence that many major corporations are instead using the savings to buy back their own stock. ‘These numbers prove that the bulk of the savings from this bill aren’t trickling down into higher wages, but into bigger gains for giant corporations and the wealthy,’ said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., in a statement. Cisco Systems, for example, announced plans this month to buy back $25 billion in shares, while Wells Fargo said in January it would buy back 350 million shares, valued at $22.5 billion. According to a survey of Morgan Stanley analysts, only 13 percent of tax cut savings will go towards worker compensation, while 43 percent will go to wealthy shareholders and executives via buybacks and dividends. To date, corporations have spent more than 30 times as much on buybacks alone as on bonuses and pay raises.” [Accounting Today,2/28/18]