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A new report on the salaries of top executives finds that C-E-Os make nearly 350 times as much as an average American worker.

The Institute for Policy Studies releases a report each year on the significant pay gaps that exist between bosses and their employees.

Speaking on WNPR's Where We Live, Sam Pizzigati, an Associate fellow at the Institute and co-author of the report says exorbitant salaries aren't always paid based on a company's performance and that tax dollars are subsidizing CEO salaries.

Pizzigati says companies take advantage of an unlimited tax deduction for executive pay.

"The more companies overpay their top executives, the less they pay in taxes. That's because the tax code allows corporations to deduct their pay expenses as a legitimate business expense."

Pizzigati says other factors that contribute to high salary packages include unlimited preferred compensation where executives are allowed to invest in accounts with guaranteed returns unlike most Americans who have 401ks and see their investments go up and down.

Peter Gleason, Managing Director and CFO for the National Association of Corporate Directors says leveling the salary field between CEOs and employees must first be tied to improving performance measurements

"Those are things that need to be clearly defined and used by comp commit as they go forward and reward top performance. The rallying cry out there is when CEOs fail and they get paid millions of dollars to fail. That's a major problem and that's the focus of comp committees in terms of how are they structuring these pay deals?"

There are several bills before Congress looking at the issue of exorbitant CEO salaries including legislation sponsored by California Representative, Barbara Lee that would prevent corporations from deducting executive pay that runs more than twenty-five times the cost of the company's lowest paid worker.