Business in brief: IRS extends tax deadline two days
Taxpayers around the country will get an extra two days, until April 17, to file 2006 returns and pay taxes owed, the Internal Revenue Service said Wednesday.
The two-day reprieve comes about because April 15, the usual tax day, falls on a Sunday this year and April 16 is Emancipation Day, a legal holiday in the District of Columbia. The IRS said holidays observed in the nation’s capital have an impact nationwide.
The tax agency had previously announced that residents of the District of Columbia and six eastern states would have an April 17 deadline because they are served by an IRS processing facility in Massachusetts, where Patriots Day will be observed on April 16.
The IRS said the April 17 deadline will apply to actions including:
“2006 federal individual income tax returns, whether filed electronically or on paper.
“Requests for an automatic six-month tax-filing extension.
“2006 balance due payments.
“Tax-year 2006 contributions to a Roth or traditional IRA.
Atlanta
New Home Depot CEO paid less
The Home Depot Inc. is paying new chief executive Frank Blake a fraction of what it paid his predecessor, Bob Nardelli, and has taken the unusual step of promising Blake no severance package if he leaves.
But executive compensation experts don’t expect the decision announced Wednesday by the world’s largest home improvement store chain to set a trend in corporate America, despite the ire that hefty salaries have drawn among investors.
“I wish it were a trend,” said Lowell Peterson, a New York labor attorney who is familiar with executive compensation issues.
“I suspect it’s unique to Home Depot because the pay and severance package given to Nardelli was so out of line.”
Atlanta-based Home Depot said in a regulatory filing that Blake could earn as much as $8.9 million in total compensation this year.
That’s a fraction of the $25.7 million a year on average that Nardelli was earning at Home Depot excluding stock options.
Minneapolis
Northwest makes deal with PBGC
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. said it has made a deal with Northwest Airlines Corp. to resolve delinquent insurance payments.
Northwest agreed to pay $14 million to settle overdue insurance premiums for its pilot retirement plan, PBGC spokesman Gary Pastorius said Wednesday. Northwest and other employers pay the premiums to the government agency, which guarantees pensions.
In exchange for the $14 million payment, the PBGC agreed to release Northwest from liens related to a waiver for late payments Northwest made to its pension plans, Pastorius said.
The agreement does not resolve Northwest’s underfunded pension plans. The PBGC said when Northwest filed for bankruptcy protection in September 2005 that the airline’s pensions were underfunded by $5.7 billion.