unlike interest on bonds, are not tax-deductible business expenses. And when a corporation distributes these dividends, the stockholders are taxed on the dividends. (Since the corporation already has paid taxes on its earnings, critics say that taxing dividend payments to shareholders amounts to "double taxation" of corporate profits.) Many large corporations have a great number of owners, or shareholders. A major company may be owned by a million or more people, many of whom hold fewer than 100 shares of stock each. This widespread ownership has given many Americans a direct stake in some of the nation's biggest companies. By the mid-1990s, more than 40 percent of U.S. families owned common stock, directly or through mutual funds or other intermediaries. But widely dispersed ownership also implies a separation of ownership and control. Because shareholders generally cannot know and manage the full details of a corporation's business, they elect a board of directors to make broad corporate policy.