Business

AT&T Is So Excited About Tax Reform It’s Giving Each Employee $1,000 Extra Bonus

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Telecom giant AT&T is so pleased with tax reform plan that it will give more than 200,000 employees an extra $1,000 bonus, the company announced Wednesday.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed the Senate Tuesday evening, and was ratified once again by the House Wednesday. If President Donald Trump signs the bill before Christmas, employees will get their bonuses this year.

“Congress, working closely with the President, took a monumental step to bring taxes paid by U.S. businesses in line with the rest of the industrialized world,” said Randall Stephenson, chairman and CEO of AT&T. “This tax reform will drive economic growth and create good-paying jobs. In fact, we will increase our U.S. investment and pay a special bonus to our U.S. employees.”

The company also announced that it will invest more than $1 billion into the U.S. economy once the bill, the major first tax reform legislation since the Reagan era, becomes law.

Many critics of the proposal, which reduces corporate tax rates in an effort to improve business liquidity and drive growth, say the Republican tax plan will not help growth at all.

“CEOs aren’t waiting on a tax cut to jump-start the economy, a favorite phrase of politicians who have never run a company,” former New York City mayor and Democratic mega donor Michael Bloomberg wrote in an editorial. “It’s pure fantasy to think that the tax bill will lead to higher wages and growth.”

NBC’s “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie repeated Bloomberg’s position that businesses wouldn’t reinvest savings from the tax plan, and asked House Speaker Paul Ryan whether he was living in a “fantasy world” earlier Wednesday.

Ryan replied that the corporate tax cuts would likely encourage businesses to “reinvest in the workers, reinvest in the factories, pay people more money, higher wages.”

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