With Bonuses Capped Will Other Forms of Compensation Soar on Wall Street?

Posted on March 19, 2009

In a move designed to divert attention from the real fraud in the AIG bailout, i.e. the counterparty payouts, the House approved a bill to slap punishing taxes on employee bonuses from firms bailed out by taxpayers. Will this close the story on this silly saga?
I’m sure Wall Street is not too worried about taxes on bonuses. There are already more tax-efficient ways to shift the bailout money around.

One method is to just raise base salaries. A more clever scheme, though, has been devised by Goldman: Disguise bonuses as loans.

After pilfering $15 billion from the taxpayer via the AIG shell, Goldman announced the other day a large loan program for its employees who were facing “financial hardship”. You can read about the Goldman loan program here.

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