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Companies that give executives extra money to cover excise taxes they might be hit with from their golden parachutes (known as a tax "gross-up") are becoming an endangered species. Executive pay consultants Pearl Meyer & Partners recently found that among the 50 largest public companies in the Fortune 500, the prevalence of tax gross-ups has fallen from 41 percent in 2006 to just 14 percent at the end of 2012.
The cash portion of many severance packages - which is typically two to three times an executive's average combined salary and bonus - appears to be declining, too. Fewer boards are choosing multiples of three or more when setting these rewards. "From an optics perspective, companies have reconsidered whether they need to offer" such big multiples, says Dan Wetzel, an executive pay consultant with Pearl Meyer. "Some have really pulled back from that."