Tag Archives: income tax

US corporate tax reform

December 13, 2016 By in corporate tax reform in the US, income tax rates, Uncategorized Tags: , , , Leave a comment

 why look at the corporate tax rate?

As I’ve mentioned on occasion in other posts, one of the features of today’s US stock market is that it seems to pay no attention at all to the rate at which publicly traded companies pay tax.  All that counts is (after-tax) eps and eps growth.

A generation ago, when I entered the market, the opposite was the case.  Acting on the assumption that a company couldn’t sustain a super-low tax rate for a long time, analysts scrupulously adjusted, or “normalized,” a company’s tax rate, usually to the statutory maximum.  Of course, it has turned out that some firms–and some industries–have been able to maintain a sub-par tax rate for far longer than anyone imagined possible back then.

the US tax system

There are two main issues with the current US corporate tax system, as I see it.  The statutory rate of 35% is very high in comparison with the world average of around 20%.  So, if there isn’t a crucial reason to locate here, the US is financially a bad place for a company to have operations.  Also, politically savvy industries–oil and gas drilling, for example–have been able to lobby for special breaks that make the tax code unduly complex and the amount that the IRS collects less than it should be.

reform likely

President-elect Trump is promising to address this issue by lowering the federal corporate tax rate to perhaps 15%.  Implied, but not yet stated, is that the tax code will also be simplified by wiping out special exemptions for certain industries.  There seems to be widespread support for both parts of such reform.  So it seems to me that the effort, which has always previously been derailed by special interests, has a good chance to succeed.

market consequences

This means, though, that for the first time in a long while, analysts will be scrutinizing company financials to try to separate winners from losers.

potential winners

The obvious winners are firms that have large amounts of US taxable income and that pay cash taxes at the full 35% rate.  The pharmaceutical industry is one.  No surprise that most of the tax inversions of the recent past have been in pharma.

More tomorrow.

 

 

US corporate income tax reform (ii)

November 22, 2016 By in deferred tax, income tax rates, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

To summarize yesterday’s post:

firms with taxable income

Lowering the corporate tax rate in the US, while eliminating special interest tax preferences/exemptions, will benefit companies that have a high current tax rate.  It will boost such a firm’s earnings by as much as 30%.

On the other hand, companies that have a low income tax rate will receive little or no benefit.  Continuing to spend resources on what are in effect tax shelters for themselves will make no sense.  To the extent that they are able to unwind these arrangements, they will benefit by doing so.  If, however, they are recipients of special interest tax reduction deals, they may be absolute losers, as well as relative ones, if/when these special preferences are eliminated.

The greatest uncertainty here is whether industries that are recipients of large tax breaks, like real estate and oil and gas, will have their special interest preferences eliminated.  This will be a key indicator of whether the “Drain the Swamp” rhetoric is more than an empty slogan.

firms with losses

This case is not as straightforward, thanks to wrinkles in the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles used by publicly traded companies in their reports to shareholders.

for the IRS

Let’s assume a firm makes a pre-tax loss in the current year.

 

The company has a limited ability to use this loss to offset taxes paid in past years ( it carries the loss back).  It restates its past returns and gets a refund.

If it still has a portion of the loss that can’t be used in this way, it carries the loss forward to potentially use to shield income in future years from tax.

If the corporate income tax rate drops from 35% to 15%, the amount of pre-tax income that can be sheltered from tax by loss carryforwards remains the same.  But the value of the carryforward is reduced by 60%.

for financial reporting

That’s tomorrow’s topic.

 

US corporate tax reform: stock market implications (i)

November 21, 2016 By in deferred taxes, income tax rates, Uncategorized Tags: , , Leave a comment

high US corporate taxes

The headline rate for US federal tax on corporate profits is 35%.  That’s higher than just about anyplace else on the planet and, in itself, a deterrent to business formation in the United States.  It’s also the reason for the big business of advising corporations on how to finesse the tax code that has sprung up over the past decade or so.  In addition, it’s also why tax havens such as Ireland, Switzerland, Hong Kong and assorted islands in the Atlantic Ocean have become so popular with Americans.

A generation ago, world stock markets paid particular attention the rate at which a given company paid corporate tax.  The assumption back then, which has turned out to be incorrect, was that a firm could only sustain a low tax rate for a limited period of time.  So no matter what the rate shown in the financial statements, professional securities analysts would “normalize” it  to the top marginal rate.  Portfolio managers wouldn’t pay a full price for a low tax payer, either.

Not so in today’s world.  As far as I can see, Wall Street has long since stopped believing that the “quality” of earnings taxed at below the statutory tax rate is less than those same earnings taxed at a higher one.

Trump’s proposed reform

Given that the Republican party controls both houses of Congress and the presidency, it seems to me that the corporate tax reform championed by Donald Trump has a good chance for becoming law.  This would mean that for a company having $100 in fully-taxed pretax US income, after-tax profit would rise from $65 to $85–a 30+% boost.

big stock market implications

A change like this would have enormous implications for US-traded stocks.  In particular:

–investor interest would rotate toward purely domestic companies.  This would favor mid- and small-caps over large, and dollar earners over multinationals.  I think this is already starting to happen

–to the degree that they could be, elaborate tax avoidance schemes that have become common for US firms will be unwound.  Tax havens will suffer.  On the other hand, profits from future earnings that would otherwise be held in tax-haven banks will begin to be repatriated to the US.  Trump is also proposing to allow money now “trapped” in tax havens to be brought back to the US on payment of a 10% income tax.

–tax inversions by US-based companies–that is, flight of high-rate US taxpayers to tax havens abroad (or, actually, just about anywhere else) will come to a halt.  Arguably, companies that have recently inverted may begin to trade at discounts to un-inverted peers

–the price US firms would be willing to pay for foreign companies using funds parked abroad should fall

–it’s possible that US investors will begin to become interested once again in the ins and outs of the tax line on the income statement.  That might mean that 1980-style quality-of-earnings differentials will be in vogue again

–there are also possible negative implications for firms that have substantial tax loss carryforwards or who benefit from the many industry-specific tax preferences of the current tax code.

 

More tomorrow.