Software Billionaires ‘Paid $1 a Year’

Three software billionaires are to pay themselves just $1 in salary this year. The men in question operate an effective monopoly on a major segment of the Internet and are worth an estimated $19 billion.

Nothing weird about the super-rich paying themselves peanuts to keep the old tax bill down while living off dividends and stock in their company, you might think, but why isn’t anyone criticising them for using a cynical ploy to reduce personal tax while having more money than you can shake a stick at?

The answer, of course, is that these billionaires wear white hats and work for a company whose motto is ‘don’t be evil’. Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt and co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have limited their salaries to a $1 for the third consecutive year while the company they run has seen its value rise to five times its original listed worth in 2004…

the Inquirer