LOS B requires us to:
describe how taxes affect the cost of capital from different capital sources
a. There are three components of capital, i.e. debt, preferred equity, and common equity.
b. Preferred stock and common stock dividends are paid after-tax, so tax does not have much impact on it.
c. The servicing cost of debt is deductible for tax purposes, thus its real cost to the company is reduced by the amount of tax saved due to the interest saved. The actual cost of debt to the company is:
Cost of Debt = rd(1-t)
For example, a 10% loan with 40% tax rate would cost the company 6% (i.e. 10*(1-0.40)). So, if there is a pending loan of $ 1 million, the interest on the debt of $ 100,000 is deductible for tax purposes. There is a 40% savings on the amount of interest of $ 100,000, which would otherwise have been payable as a tax if this cost would not have been reduced from the profits.
d. Thus, the cost of leveraging is always lesser in the countries and regions with high tax rates, than in the countries with lower tax rates.
Check out our YouTube Channel for the latest updates.