When accounting for its debt tax benefit, the depreciation tax shield can also be valued standalone.
Every additional dollar of step-up induced depreciation tax shield increases the after-tax cash flow of a firm by one dollar, as it reduces the tax burden by one dollar.
Therefore, the present value of the depreciation tax shield to the new buyer is:
The tax basis to the current owner is 316, so the present value of the remaining depreciation tax shield to the current owner is:
While the derivations in this article can be modified to reflect that approach, the author's experience is that actual buyers and sellers of assets include the
depreciation tax shield in cash flows that are discounted at a risk-adjusted rate.
Letting [ATCF.sup.*] represent those first four terms in equation 10 except the
depreciation tax shield, the following is obtained:
Thus, there is no increased
depreciation tax shield, but also no capital gains tax is levied on the target firm.
From Equation (3), the asset's net present value equals the present value of the unlevered after-tax future cash flows (including
depreciation tax shields), plus the present value of the after-tax salvage value, minus the asset's initial cost.