Companies Push Back on Stock Buyback, Executive Pay Tax Plans

Companies and their lobbyists in Washington are urging Republicans peering into C-suite compensation packages to look elsewhere for offsets as they seek to pay for a mammoth package of tax cuts.

GOP lawmakers seeking revenue and messaging that they aren’t favoring the rich are leaning toward tightening deduction rules around a company’s highest-paid executives and dialing up the stock buyback excise tax. The gambit, though, doesn’t have unanimity within the GOP conference as opponents blast it as a Democratic idea that’s overly complicated and an economic drag.

Republicans in 2017 broadened the pool of employees covered by executive pay laws ...