{"id":1534,"date":"2019-09-12T13:33:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-12T13:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analystprep.com\/cfa-level-1-exam\/?p=1534"},"modified":"2025-01-22T12:21:51","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T12:21:51","slug":"taxes-affect-cost-capital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analystprep.com\/cfa-level-1-exam\/corporate-finance\/taxes-affect-cost-capital\/","title":{"rendered":"How Taxes Affect the Cost of Capital"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">\n{\n  \"@context\": \"https:\/\/schema.org\",\n  \"@type\": \"VideoObject\",\n\n  \"name\": \"Cost of Capital (2021 Level I CFA\u00ae Exam \u2013 Reading 33)\",\n\n  \"description\": \"This video lesson covers the concept of cost of capital, including the weighted average cost of capital (WACC), its calculation, and application in investment decisions. It explains the tax impact on debt costs, methods for estimating equity and debt costs, and considerations for global markets, target structures, and flotation costs.\",\n\n  \"uploadDate\": \"2018-10-21T00:00:00+00:00\",\n\n  \"thumbnailUrl\": \"https:\/\/analystprep.com\/path-to-thumbnail\/cost-of-capital-thumbnail.jpg\",\n\n  \"contentUrl\": \"https:\/\/youtu.be\/I_SgGrDv1YM\",\n\n  \"embedUrl\": \"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/I_SgGrDv1YM\",\n\n  \"duration\": \"PT33M52S\",\n\n  \"publisher\": {\n    \"@type\": \"Organization\",\n    \"name\": \"AnalystPrep\",\n    \"logo\": {\n      \"@type\": \"ImageObject\",\n      \"url\": \"https:\/\/analystprep.com\/path-to-logo\/logo.jpg\",\n      \"width\": 600,\n      \"height\": 60\n    }\n  }\n}\n<\/script>\n\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-nowrap is-layout-flex wp-container-core-group-is-layout-ad2f72ca wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\">\n\n\n<p>[vsw id=&#8221;I_SgGrDv1YM&#8221; source=&#8221;youtube&#8221; width=&#8221;611&#8243; height=&#8221;344&#8243; autoplay=&#8221;no&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p>Taxes can have a significant impact on the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) of a company. However, taxes affect the cost of capital from different sources of capital in different ways.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Effect of Taxes on Debt<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>In many tax jurisdictions, interest on debt financing is a deduction made before arriving at the taxable income of a company. You may recall that in the equation to compute the WACC of a company, the expected before-tax cost on new debt financing, <em>r<sub>d<\/sub><\/em>, is adjusted by a factor, (1-t). Multiplying <em>r<sub>d<\/sub><\/em>, by the factor (1-t), results in an estimate of the company\u2019s after-tax cost of debt.<\/p>\n<p>An example will help to explain this concept better. If, for example, company XYZ pays $10,000 as interest expense on debt to bondholders of $100,000, and the company is subject to a tax rate of 35%, then the cost of debt would be ($10,000) \u00d7 (1 &#8211; 0.35) = $6,500. The cost of debt would not be the entire $10,000 that is paid as interest expense given that the taxable income of the company would be reduced by the $10,000, which leads to a reduction in the amount of tax that the company pays by ($10,000) \u00d7 35% = $3,500. The before-tax cost of debt for the company would be ($10,000\/$100,000) = 10%, while the after-tax cost of debt would be ($6,500\/$100,000) = 6.5%.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Effect of Taxes on Common Equity and Preferred Stock<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Taxes do not affect the cost of common equity or the cost of preferred stock. This is the case because the payments to the owners of these sources of capital, whether in the form of dividend payments or return on capital, are not tax-deductible for a company. This explains why in the equation for computing the WACC of a company, no tax adjustment is made for these sources of capital.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h2><strong>Question<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Which of the following sources of capital is <em>most likely<\/em> affected by taxes?<\/p>\n<p>A. Preferred stock<\/p>\n<p>B. Common equity<\/p>\n<p>C. Debt<\/p>\n<p><strong>Solution<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The correct answer is C.<\/p>\n<p>A company\u2019s before-tax cost of debt is adjusted for taxes to derive the after-tax cost of debt for the company.<\/p>\n<p>Options A and B are incorrect because taxes do not affect the cost of common equity or the cost of preferred stock.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><em>Reading 33 LOS 33b:<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Describe how taxes affect the cost of capital from different capital sources<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"notes_inv\">\n<hr>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/analystprep.com\/cfa-level-1-exam\/corporate-finance\/learning-sessions-curriculum-corporate-finance\/\"><em>Corporate Finance &#8211; Learning Sessions<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[vsw id=&#8221;I_SgGrDv1YM&#8221; source=&#8221;youtube&#8221; width=&#8221;611&#8243; height=&#8221;344&#8243; autoplay=&#8221;no&#8221;] Taxes can have a significant impact on the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) of a company. However, taxes affect the cost of capital from different sources of capital in different ways. The Effect&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corporate-finance","blog-post","no-post-thumbnail","animate"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Impact of Taxes on Cost of Capital | CFA Level 1<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Understand how taxes influence a company&#039;s cost of capital, including the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) and after-tax cost of debt calculations.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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