TV News LIES

The heads of the nation’s top companies got the biggest raises in recent memory last year after taking a hiatus during the recession.

At a time most employees can barely remember their last substantial raise, median CEO pay jumped 27% in 2010 as the executives’ compensation started working its way back to prerecession levels, a USA TODAY analysis of data from GovernanceMetrics International found. Workers in private industry, meanwhile, saw their compensation grow just 2.1% in the 12 months ended December 2010, says the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

US aircraft manufacturer Boeing received at least $5.3bn (£3.3bn) in unfair aid from Washington, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has concluded.

The subsidies included money for research and development from the Nasa space agency, a panel of international trade judges has ruled. Last year the WTO said that Boeing's arch rival Airbus had received illegal aid from European governments.

After another money-losing year, Bank of America Corp. got the upper hand with Uncle Sam in 2010.

The Charlotte-based bank had no federal income tax expense for a second straight year and actually reported a tax "benefit" of nearly $1 billion. Also, the bank's billions in accumulated losses could reduce its taxes in future years, a tax expert said.

General Electric, the nation’s largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010. The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States. Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

That may be hard to fathom for the millions of American business owners and households now preparing their own returns, but low taxes are nothing new for G.E. The company has been cutting the percentage of its American profits paid to the Internal Revenue Service for years, resulting in a far lower rate than at most multinational companies.

Bank executives rarely face money laundering charges because investigators don't usually uncover the kind of decisive evidence needed to convict them, prosecutors said Monday at an international conference in Florida.

"You don't find the smoking gun email where an executive says, 'I know it's drug money, but go do it anyway,'" said Evan Weitz, a New York federal prosecutor, during a panel discussion at the annual anti-money laundering conference.

A group of Silicon Valley corporate leaders ventured to Capitol Hill this week with a message for U.S. lawmakers: If you don’t lower our taxes, plenty of other countries will.

The 18 CEOs and other executives met with dozens of legislators March 16 and yesterday with the aim of also protecting government spending on scientific studies and tax deductions for corporate research and development while pushing for changes they say will make their companies more competitive.