In the public-choice seminar that I teach this semester at GMU Law, my class and I had a splendid conversation yesterday about Sec. 162(m) of the U.S. tax code. (Most of the splendor of the conversation was supplied by my students, not be me.)
This tax-code provision was created in 1993. It prohibits firms from deducting from their taxable incomes amounts above $1M paid to top corporate executives unless these excess amounts are compensation for meeting performance-based measures.