Companies, just like people, get write offs and deductions. This is last year's Top 25 corporate tax payers, you'll see some of those names on there with multi-billion dollar payments. Anyway, a CEO's salary is generally not directly related to company profits, but is usually more related to it then the mail room clerk or his secretary. A CEO might get a big salary because its part of his original contract, when things were doing well, same as a QB doesn't lose money when his team loses three times in a row because the Center is at home with a broken collarbone or the Coach is brand new because the old one retired. One CEO might actually have been hired by a company losing money at some outrageous salary because he has a knack for turning around disasters, save them a billion that year and still have the company in the red, and the shareholders ar eunderstandably well pleased at his performance, same as we are generally pleased with congressmen and presidents who manage to cut spending even if we still end up running a deficit that year nor automatically clap one on the back if we ran neutral or surplus if he wasn't vaguely responsible. So that CEO earned his salary in the eyes of the only people who matter, the shareholders, and he pays his income tax on his income same as the QB, the center, the coach, the secretary, and the mail room clerk... based on their taxable income, which is also what corporations do, something like half the population of this country also paid less taxes to the fed gov't this year than people have in their wallet for that matter.

Anyway, as one might guess from Think Progress, not exactly a pro-capitalist bunch, its very disingenuous, some company that pays it CEO 100 mill as opposed to 20 mill and paying taxes on that 80 itself, actually results in more money to the gov't. As mentioned, the rich pay taxes too, and at a very high rate, and generally a company can write off stuff a millionaire can't (and vice versa), like deciding to double dip by getting a Research deduction and a green tech tax credit by researching 'better inventory methods' or something because the new system uses less fuel per pound of freight or whatever, then deduct and claim a credit on buying new freight trucks that get 2% better fuel efficiency or such. There's a wad of personal stuff people can do that's the same, unsurprisingly multi-billion dollar corporations typically are skilled at saving money and hire good accountants. If the system's being gamed, that's congresses own damn fault for shoddy bills, and corruption, though I suspect incompetence and being blinded by basking in the brilliance of their own good intentions let's more of this stuff happen slide by then actual corruption does. When it comes to man-made disasters, stupidity trumps malice every time.

And squeezing doesn't help much if the goal is to hurt rich people and companies, which of course we all know is what a lot of people of a certain political affiliation really want. Raise corporate taxes and they pay execs more, lower it below the upper bracket and they pay less and let them use the company's new car and yacht and mansion, raise both up too high and the companies just leave for another location.