Twenty-five of the 100 highest-paid U.S. CEOs earned more last year than their companies paid in federal income tax, according to a pay study released this morning.

The report from the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a left-leaning Washington think tank, also found many of the companies spent more on lobbying than they did on taxes, Reuters reported.

Compensation for the 25 CEOs with pay surpassing corporate taxes averaged $16.7 million, according to the study, compared with a $10.8 million average for CEOs at Standard & Poor’s 500 companies. Among the companies topping the IPS list:

– eBay Inc., whose CEO, John Donahoe, made $12.4 million, but which reported a $131 million refund on its 2010 U.S. taxes.
– Boeing Co., which paid CEO Jim McNerney $13.8 million, sent in $13 million in federal income taxes, and spent $20.8 million on lobbying and campaign contributions.
–  General Electric Co., where CEO Jeff Immelt earned $15.2 million in 2010, while the company got a $3.3 billion federal refund and invested $41.8 million in lobbying and political campaigns.

Two-thirds of the firms studied kept their taxes low by utilizing offshore subsidiaries in tax havens such as Bermuda, Singapore and Luxembourg. The remaining companies benefited from accelerated depreciation.

At a time when lawmakers are facing tough choices in a quest to slash the national debt, the report quickly hit a nerve.

After reading it, Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings, ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, called for hearings on executive compensation. In a letter to that committee’s chairman, Republican Darrell Issa, Cummings asked “to examine the extent to which the problems in CEO compensation that led to the economic crisis continue to exist today.”

Click here to download the report.