Posted on 03/28/2010 5:00:07 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
AT&T Plans $1 Bln Q1 Charge For New Health-care Law
3/26/2010 6:13 PM ET
Telecommunications giant AT&T Inc (T) said Friday that it plans to take a non-cash charge of about $1 billion in the first quarter to reflect a change in the tax treatment of the Medicare Part D subsidy as a results of the new U.S. health-care reform law that President Barack Obama signed this week.
In a regulatory filing, the Dallas, Texas-based company said it will be evaluating prospective changes to the active and retiree health care benefits it offers as a result of the legislation, including the additional tax burden.
The new legislation prevents corporations from deducting tax-free subsidies they receive from the government for providing retirees with prescription-drug benefits. AT&T has a large number of union workers and also a sizeable retiree base.
Also Friday, 3M Co. (MMM) said that it expects to record a one-time non-cash charge of $85 to $90 million after tax, or about $0.12 cents per share in the first quarter, resulting from the new health-care law.
Earlier this week, construction and mining equipments maker Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) that it will take a after-tax charge of $100 million in the first quarter due to the additional taxes to be levied following the new U.S. health-care legislation.
(Excerpt) Read more at rttnews.com ...
Folks, folks - this is a REDUCTION IN A SUBSIDY, not a Tax Increase. Please, read these articles before you post. It is not a cut into AT&T, Caterpillar, and others’ net revenues. The Feds are taking BACK part of a HC SUBSIDY with this move.
My point is, we are bashing a reduction in Corporate welfare. Why would we do that, if we are fiscal conservatives? In this case, it is not a bad thing.
I hate socialized medicine, but - this particular change is not a tax increase, it is a SUBSIDY reduction!!!!!
We need to be careful what we criticize. Big businesses lobby too, for farm subsidies, bail outs. Let’s not automatically be “spun” by them.
Let’s keep everyone honest - and their hands out of the public till!
4L
The CEO’s should announce about 2,500,000 layoff’s and see how Obummer squirms then as the companies right size again. Healthcare will cause many more layoffs this year
Save your breath, they’re on a roll (and likely love welfare of the corporate variety anyway).
OK, well, I give up.
I don’t think people are reading the articles being posted on this particular topic, this week. (AT&T, Caterpillar, etc.)
This is very clearly a cut in a subsidy (a reduced bailout) — not a “tax hike.”
Sure, we need to cut taxes; but we also need to push for cuts in subsidies, bailouts and all types of corporate welfare.
So much for political principles and public policy consistency.....
Indeed. In my fantasy world, the AT&T guy sits through Waxman’s introductory bloviating, excuse me, speech, excuse me, remarks, then whatever Waxman eventually gets around to as his first question, the AT&T guy says, “yeah ok, you want our numbers? You think we just made them up and got all shaky when you thought you were calling our bluff? They’re in our 10-Q, idiot!”, slams one down on the table and walks out.
I don’t think we’re bashing corporate welfare here. We’re calling out Waxman and Stupak for their thuggishness. A company does an assessment of how the new racket is going to affect their bottom line and makes it public per Sarbanes-Oxley, which immediately brings down the wrath of the posers in Congress. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
This whole thing (Obamacare) is going to snowball into a hell of a crash, IMHO.
You are not disagreeing with what I said.
You are assuming they (these corporations) will automatically ‘jump’ to the Welfare State option.
Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn’t.
Instead of assuming that shift, why not openly encourage these companies, their workers and their retirees to DO THE RIGHT THING, AND PAY FOR MORE/ALL THEIR OWN COVERAGE, AND APPLAUD THEM / ENCOURAGE THEM TO DO THAT?
STOP WHINING ABOUT WHAT AMOUNTS TO A *REDUCTION” IN GOVT WEALTH TRANSFERS.
See #30:
You are not disagreeing with what I said.
You are assuming they (these corporations) will automatically ‘jump’ to the Welfare State option.
Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn’t.
Instead of assuming that shift, why not openly encourage these companies, their workers and their retirees to DO THE RIGHT THING, AND PAY FOR MORE/ALL THEIR OWN COVERAGE, AND APPLAUD THEM / ENCOURAGE THEM TO DO THAT?
STOP WHINING ABOUT WHAT AMOUNTS TO A *REDUCTION* IN GOVT WEALTH TRANSFERS.
Corporate taxes are absurdly high here and disallowing employee expenses means there will be less employees.
The caps don't help your argument. Having paid ridiculous c-corp taxes myself, I realize that deducting my own health insurance costs only made sense. The answer is to eliminate corporate taxes since that is the only wealth transfer that is meaningful in this debate.
Agree - cut corporate taxes.
If you want to argue that a subsidy is “really” a tax cut or refund, if someone is paying positive taxes, that is another matter....
But strictly speaking, this is a *subsidy* that is being cut, aside from the levels of taxes being paid by the given company (whether they are positive, or zero).
4L
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