Bonuses for people with incomes over $250,000 would be taxed at a 90% rate for companies receiveing TARP money

The House just passed a Wall Street bonus tax

The measure would tax individuals on any bonuses received in 2009 from companies getting $5 billion or more in money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Bonuses for people with incomes over $250,000 would be taxed at a 90% rate.

Let's do some quick math shall we?

1) You get a million, you get taxed 90% and keep 100K


2) You return 750K, keep 250K, get taxed 35% and you keep 162.5K


For option 2 it looks like you did a good thing because you returned 750K. But in reality you did it because that way you can keep a lot more of the money