It isn’t news these days that chief executive officers enjoy pay that amounts to 400 times that of the workers.

Much of that obscene compensation is non-taxable through an IRS loophole for CEOs called “performance pay” or more appropriately “bonus pay.” If the CEO earns performance pay, so should the workers who made it possible through their efforts.

While Congress is supposed to be working on tax reform, this CEO performance pay loophole ought to be either eliminated or extended to all workers at the same percentage rate as for the CEO. For example, if the corporation gives the CEO a performance bonus equal to 50 percent more than his or her regular salary, all employees would receive a tax break on 50 percent of their pay as non-taxable “performance pay.”

It should be no surprise that this CEO pay obscenity exists, given that money is power and the power is now in the hands of the 1 percent everyone is talking about. It is time Congress changed this and other serious IRS rule inequities before ever considering reductions in Medicare payments to providers or changes to the Social Security program.

Jim Chiddix, Waterville