The 1942 excess-profits tax made pensions a tax-avoidance vehicle for companies

Evidence

The Revenue Act of 1942 incentivized companies to create pensions by levying a huge tax (between 80 percent and 90 percent) on excess profits—defined as corporate profits that were greater than they’d been prior to the war. Companies could avoid the tax by placing some profits into pension trusts, and then deducting those amounts from their overall profits. — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth, 356